


Flaws

by BeatnikFreak



Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Schönberg/Boublil, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, London, M/M, Romance, Rowing, Swearing, Swearing everywhere literally, and politics, cosette and grantaire are bros, enjolras is a bit of a mess to be honest, eponine and courf are party flat bros, essentially enjolras feuilly courf and ferre are rowers, eventually, lots of rowing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-07-24
Updated: 2013-09-16
Packaged: 2017-12-21 04:51:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 31,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/896002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeatnikFreak/pseuds/BeatnikFreak
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Since Marius fell in the Thames, Enjolras' rowing crew need a new photographer. Will Grantaire be as good as Courf claims he is, or will the drunk be yet another stress to add to Enjolras' life?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Swimming

**Author's Note:**

> so yeah I wrote les mis fic like I've been wanting to since May
> 
> here it is
> 
> I'm sorry about all the rowing stuff
> 
> yeah this will be a slow burner
> 
> also this is the longest chapter I've ever posted of anything holy crap
> 
> hope you like

There are things that are unpleasant.  There are things so unpleasant that you have nightmares about them. And then there's waiting outside the boathouse at six am on a freezing cold November morning, wearing only Lycra shorts and Wellingtons on your bottom half.  
  
"This is horrendous," shivered Jehan, whose thin frame made him a perfect cox.  
  
"At least you've got proper clothes on, Keats," replied Feuilly, eyeing the young poet's anorak and lifejacket. Jehan shrugged at his tall, freckled  friend.  
  
"Where the fuck is Enjolras?" demanded Courfeyrac, beanie pulled down over his ears.  
  
Combeferre silently pointed at the now open boathouse doors. Feuilly barely held in a groan.  
  
The four students took a collective deep breath, then headed for the ramp.  
  
"D'you need me today?" asked Jehan, directing his question at the tall blond man hanging the boathouse keys on a lanyard around his neck.  
  
Enjolras considered. "No, not today. Can you launch today?"  
  
The cox nodded. "I'll need some help getting it down to the water."  
  
"Bahorel will be here in a minute, he got caught on the 93. He'll help when he's here. Get the timer and megaphone, would you?" Jehan scampered off.  
  
"Are we scull or sweep today?" asked Feuilly, standing by the blade rack. Enjolras considered for a moment.  
  
"Scull." He eyed Combeferre as he said it. The small nod from his lifelong best friend was all the confirmation he needed. "Yeah, scull. We need the practice for the Head next month."  
  
Feuilly mocked a salute, before lifting four pairs of blades into his arms and setting off for the embankment.  
  
A loud voice heralded Bahorel's entrance. "Morning, fuckers!"  
  
Five separate middle fingers greeted this epithet.  
  
Jehan grabbed the huge man's sleeve, pulling him over to the launch in the furthest right bay. "C'mon, B, we're on launch duty today."  
  
How someone as tiny (and floral) as Jehan could pull someone built 'like a brick shithouse', as Feuilly tended to put it, noone would ever know. But Bahorel followed, his six foot six frame dwarfing the dinky poet as the pair of them dragged the launch down to the riverside.  
  
"Which boat today, boss?" piped up Courf.  
  
Enjolras audibly ground his teeth.  
"Prince Albert."  
  
Courf grinned. "Ooh dear, rowing in a royalist-affiliated boat - whatever would Robespierre say?"  
  
Feuilly laughed at his friend's annoyance. Even Combeferre cracked a smile. Enjolras was so adorable when he got republican this early in the morning.  
  
"Piss off, Courf, or I'll make you clean out the launch when we're done."  
  
Recognising a threat when he saw it, the Irishman clicked his heels and saluted - he might be wary of Enjolras' threats, but he certainly wasn't scared of him. "Jawohl, Herr Kommandant."  
  
Enjolras responded with a very mature two fingered salute.  
  
Combeferre took control at this point, striding over to their appointed boat. "Boys, to your seats."  
  
Noone questioned him. Not even Enjolras. It was why, one day, he was going to make a very good lecturer.  
  
Courf took his place by the third seat, Feuilly the second, and finally Enjolras stepped up to the front of the boat.  
  
"Slide out," came Combeferre's voice. The four of them pulled the boat out on the runners. "Shoulders."  
  
Enjolras let out a breath as he hefted the craft onto his shoulder.  
  
"Three and one, over to other side."  Combeferre and Feuilly took the weight of the boat as the other two ducked under to lift the other side of the boat.  
  
"Lower and tilt." The four men dropped the boat to waist height, and turned it. "And walk."  
  
They made their way out of the boathouse and down the ramp, the cold wind already blowing across their faces. "Don't drag the bloody riggers, how many times do I have to tell you?" exclaimed Combeferre, as if exasperated with the bunch of halfwits he'd been given. "Right, we're clear. Raise to shoulders. And heads. And walk."  
  
The team made their way down the icy embankment towards the launch waiting for them.  
  
"Lower to waists."  
  
There was a faint groan of pain. "You didn't stretch, did you, Courf?"  
  
"Not much time this morning, 'Ferre," replied the History and English student through gritted teeth.  
  
"We'll do that after this, then. To water."  
  
The boat's bottom touched the river, rocking slightly.  
  
"Blades," came Combeferre's final command.  
  
The faint clacking and clicking of eight blades being locked into gates sounded across the dead silent river.  
  
"Courf, stretch," ordered Enjolras. The brunet nodded, running up to the towpath and proceeding to run through a set of stretches.  
  
"Where's Puppy Eyes?" enquired Feuilly.  
  
"Oh, Christ," swore Enjolras. "I forgot about that."  
  
The puppy - or Marius bloody Pontmercy, as Enjolras preferred to call him - was meant to be coming to take photos of their crew. The rise of the coxless quad was far too good propaganda for the university to miss out on. Their faces were going to be emblazoned across every prospectus in sight, before long.  
  
"Enjolras, forget?" called Courf from the towpath. "The apocalypse must be coming."  
  
"Stretch your bloody quads, you shameful excuse for a rower," he yelled back at his other best friend.  
  
"Shameful, no. Shameless, definitely," smirked the Irishman. Of course, Enjolras noted, that was totally accurate.  
  
"Get to fucking work, shorty," came Bahorel's distinctive shout. Wisely, judging by the cuts that perpetually peppered the big bloke's knuckles, Courf went back to stretching.  
  
"So where is Marius?" asked Combeferre.  
  
Enjolras ran a hand through his hair. "Fuck if I know. He said he'd be here."  
  
"Dear Marius is probably still tucked up in bed," said Bahorel wickedly, walking over to the quad.  
  
"With teddy," added Enjolras.  
  
Combeferre looked at him in his teacherly manner. "Now now, I thought you weren't going to mention that?" he said in a reproaching tone that veered entirely too close to humour to be genuine.  
  
"What can I say, my personal skills need work," replied Enjolras with a grin.  
  
"Tell me something I don't know!" shouted Courf, who got a middle finger for his efforts.  
  
"Enj," piped up Jehan, skipping - yes, skipping - towards him, "can I have the petrol cupboard key please?"  
  
He was entirely too sweet to be punished for calling him Enj, the boat captain had decided a long time ago. Besides, at least he pronounced it properly. And Jehan calling him what sounded like the French for 'angel' was definitely a compliment.  
  
Key in hand, the little man skipped off again.  
  
"That bloke is entirely too cheerful for this time in the morning," muttered Feuilly to Enjolras, who nodded. Despite getting up to row at this time at least three times a week, Enjolras was not a morning person.  
  
"Courf, stop mooning," said Combeferre exasperatedly, watching his best friend gaze at Jehan skipping into the boathouse with a lovelorn sort of set to his features.  
  
The shorter man snapped to attention, face scarlet. Now, that was interesting, noted Combeferre. Courfeyrac's lothario nature meant that he didn't blush over such things. Not normally, at least.  
  
A clattering noise signalled a new arrival. The four men by the bank looked up to see Marius fall off his bike as he attempted to pull to a stop on a patch of ice.  
  
"Idiot," mumbled Feuilly, slightly fondly. Slightly.  
  
"Sorry I'm late!" the languages student exclaimed hurriedly, picking himself up.  
  
Enjolras thought about giving Marius an earful... And then thought better of it. "Never mind, you're here now."  
  
Apparently this was out of character, as Combeferre and Courfeyrac both shot him funny looks.  
  
"I have been known to be nice, occasionally," he said stiffly.  
  
"So you actually are hiding a decent person beneath the carapace!" cooed Courf, now done with stretching. Enjolras growled.  
  
"Hi Marius!" chirped Jehan as he came gambolling (the bloody kid was like a spring lamb on steroids) Enjolras thought wearily) with petrol in hand. He tossed the keys airily to Enjolras, who, being a typical rower, fumbled the catch.  
  
"Alright, Marius, are you going to stand bankside or in the boat?"  
  
Enjolras was rewarded with one of the blank looks that Marius had made his trademark. He decided to elaborate. It was six am, he supposed. "For the photos?"  
  
"Oh! Oh yeah! Er... I'll go for the boat?" He sounded unsure.  
  
Trying to remember what Combeferre had told him in his last lecture about interpersonal skills, Enjolras plastered a smile on his face. "Alright, go talk to Jehan and Bahorel while we push off."  
  
He walked back down to the quad, pulling off his oversized uni-branded hoodie as he went. On the riverside, the other three were also ditching their large outer layers.  
  
Now only in a thermal, Lycra shorts and rowing team tee shirt, he was quite keen to get moving.  
  
"I'll push off," he said. The other three quickly climbed into the boat, tugging off Wellingtons and shoving them in the footwells, before shoving their feet into the shoes and grasping oars.  
  
Enjolras planted one foot in the boat,  gave a good kick with his other against the embankment edge, and then pulled himself into a sitting position in his seat.  
  
"Alright, you horrible lot," came Bahorel's booming voice, "let's get you moving."  
  
Enjolras, feet now secured into his footplate, took hold of his blade handles. "Ready?"  
  
Three affirmations sounded from behind him as he started to row.  
  
"Enjolras, much harder on your right. You too, Feuilly," said Courf, suddenly much more serious.  
  
"Touch to the left - yep, we're going straight. Fire at will."  
  
Shaking his head slightly at his friend's stupid turns of phrase, Enjolras drew his hands up to his chest, then slid forward, arms outstretched, before sliding back.  
  
The rhythm was there already, already in his debater's mind. Rowing was the perfect sport for him: his logical, reasoned brain gave him the rhythm, his work ethic the perfection, and his passion the drive.  
  
The boat began to move across the water, the sound of eight oars feathering across the water and scooping in perfect synchronisation the best kind of music. Enjolras felt the tension leave his body, thinking only of the motion of his limbs and the rhythm of his breathing.  
  
Jehan sat in the launch, watching his friends do one of the things they did best. He smiled faintly. It was something of beauty, really, to see the four of them powering down the river in total harmony.  
  
Enjolras was stroke, obviously. His tall build lent itself to strength; and, let's be honest, noone else was going to lead the boat. Viciously methodical, the punishing pace that the blond set saw the boat cutting through PBs and wake alike.  
  
Feuilly was the three seat. Standing at six foot three, the lanky half-Scot, half-Pole was terrifying when he went into 'rowing mode'. Despite his slim build, the Design student had an endurance that left lesser men crying and puking off their ergo, and had been known to bench-press twice his own body weight.  
  
Next in, at two, was Courf. Despite his somewhat shorter stature, the Irishman packed a lot of punch in his wiry frame. His loud personality also came in handy, most memorably at last year's Henley, where their boat had nearly been disqualified for Courf's frenzied yell of 'get the fuck out of our fucking lane, you fucking posh boys!' when a Cambridge boat lost all sense of steering.  
  
They still won the race.  
  
And finally, dependable as ever, was Combeferre, the only one of them responsible enough to sit at bow. The philosopher's careful steering had gotten them out of more scrapes along the Thames than any of them would like to admit to.  
  
They were a good team; one that could, in the right circumstances, be absolutely devastating. Each man had his own role to fill, and did so admirably. Courf and Feuilly were not the technically perfect boat bookends, but combined, they were a powerhouse. Put that with the technical precision of Enjolras and Combeferre, the rage of the first and the calm of the latter, mix it up with Feuilly's redhead temper and Courf's irrepressible character, and they were unstoppable.  
  
It was something he'd have to write a poem about. Well... Another poem.  
  
"Right, you bastards, let's do a two k!" yelled Bahorel, who didn't even need the megaphone.  
  
"So polite," murmured Combeferre. "So kind."  
  
"Makes you look adorable, Enjy," added Courf.  
  
The History and Politics student gritted his teeth. "You know damn well my name isn't pronounced like that -"  
  
"Stop gassing, you twats, get ready to sprint!" roared Bahorel, who really got far more into this than he needed to.  
  
Jehan's voice came through the megaphone. "Ready?"  
  
A chorus of yeses.  
  
"Set."  
  
The four leant into their seats.  
  
"Go!"  
  
"They're pretty quick, aren't they?" asked Marius innocently.  
  
Bahorel looked away from the steering wheel to stare incredulously at the puppy. "Pretty quick?" he repeated. "They've got an unparalleled two k split. That boat is filled with two hundred and eighty kilos of pure power. Pretty quick, my dear puppy, is an understatement." Sermon delivered, Bahorel turned back to the steering wheel, shooting after the quad. After a second, though, he turned back over his shoulder.  
  
"Aren't you meant to be taking photos, or something?"  
  
The expression on Marius's face was comical as he fumbled for his camera.  
  
"There's a massive branch in the river on the bowside," yelled Jehan into the megaphone. "Don't catch your blades on it!"  
  
No reply was heard, but the four men avoided calamity, continuing to power towards Hammersmith at a rate of knots.  
  
"Step it up, guys, let's see how fast we can get this motherfucker!" shouted Courf. Seamlessly, Enjolras picked up the pace, the boat going faster than ever in response.  
  
"Good one Enjy! 'Ferre, bring us around this bend!"  
  
"EASY OARS, LADS!" came Bahorel's shout.  
  
The four stopped rowing.  
  
"1.29!" beamed Jehan into the megaphone. "Matched last session's best on the first go! Nice one!"  
  
Enjolras smiled faintly.  
  
Marius was having slightly less fun. It was cold, dark and the water in the boat had soaked his indie plimsolls. Also, he kept falling over whenever Bahorel put on a burst of speed or started the boat without warning.  
  
After the third time, he started to wonder if he was doing it on purpose.  
  
Thirty minutes later, the rowers were taking a slower paced return back from Chiswick. Marius leant over the side, camera in hand. "Ooh, I can get a nice shot of the bridge in the background -"  
  
But sadly, Marius' artistic vision would never be realised, as Bahorel brought the launch in a wide sweep.  
  
"Hey, did you hear a splash?" Feuilly asked Courf.  
  
"Could have sworn I heard someone scream, too," replied the two seat, then turned around. "Oh, it's just Marius. He's fallen in," he added helpfully.  
  
Enjolras groaned.  
  
~#~  
  
Doing anything with a hangover is generally pretty nasty. Then again, Grantaire was rather used to hangovers by now. He'd done two A-levels after a Jack Daniels-fuelled bender. And he'd still gotten an A and a B in them. (Noone really cared about Class Civ, anyway.)  
  
However, regardless of Grantaire's stupidly high alcohol tolerance, this morning was a bad one.  
  
"Fucking shit fucking wank fucking stupid fucking painting," he howled, throwing his paintbrush across the room.  
  
"Having a good time?" enquired a female voice.  
  
Grantaire looked around, and smiled, despite himself. "Cosette, what are you doing here?"  
  
The blonde girl walked into the otherwise deserted art studio. "I have it on good authority that someone had a late night and needs some help to make sure he finishes that vital piece of coursework due in tomorrow." Smiling, she delved into her satchel and produced a thermos and a tinfoil packet.  
  
Grantaire's eyes went wide. "Cosette, I really do think I love you." He took the victuals like they had been sent down from heaven.  
  
She patted his cheek fondly. "I know you do. Now, I've got a lecture about Baudelaire to get to, so I'll see you later. You're cooking."  
  
"Yes, my lady," he saluted. She laughed, then walked out the studio door.  
  
Grantaire leant back against the table, watching the door swing slowly shut. He often marvelled at Cosette, and how lucky he was to have her as his friend.  
  
She really was top notch, he considered, as he opened the coffee flask and took a gulp. Proper coffee, delivered to him, and a decent cheese and pickle sandwich.  
  
He didn't really know how it had happened - how him and Cosette had ended up as second year flatmates - but it had started somewhere between him meeting her at an art gallery, and his walking through her flowerbeds drunk at one in the morning during sixth form.  
  
Cosette had gone to the posh girls' school just down the road from the school him and Jehan had gone to. Papa Valjean - the terrifying ex-convict whom Cosette had wrapped around her little finger - had originally been leery of the paint-splattered, alcohol-soaked nihilist and the dippy poet bedecked in flowers, but he'd taken to the pair of them after it became clear they were going to continue to come round for tea. Papa Valjean was a big teddy-bear, once you got past the scary eyes and superstrength (and the mysterious jail time).  
  
And here they were, three years on. Jehan had moved in with some daft bloke - Marius, that was his name - that was almost as romantically inclined as he was. The only problem, however, was that dear old Marius wasn't the poet that Jehan was. Not even close.  
  
He grimaced at the thought of the lovey dovey crap the pair of them must have come out with on a regular basis.  
  
Grantaire had a bet with Bahorel - who he knew from the now-legendary freshers week pub crawl - on how long it would take Jehan to make Marius a flower crown and convince him to wear it to class.  
  
His phone buzzed in his pocket. He swallowed the final mouthful of sandwich and pulled it out. Speak of the devil.  
  
 _The incredible Pontmercy's done it again._  
  
 _Say what?_ he replied, trying not to smudge paint on the screen.  
  
 _He came out to photograph the Fab Four this morning... And fell in the river._  
  
Grantaire clapped a hand to his forehead, belatedly remembering the paint smeared all over it.  
  
 _My god, he's almost as bad as bloody Bossuet._  
  
 _Almost. But not quite. Noone's quite as bad as Bossuet. Anyway, drink tonight?  
_  
 _Yeah, sure._ Grantaire wasn't one to turn down drinks, no matter how bad the hangover. Anyway, hair of the dog. _Eight thirty?_  
  
 _Yep. Musain at eight thirty. See you there, compadre._  
  
Putting his phone away, Grantaire regarded his easel. If he was going out tonight (read: if Cosette was going to let him out without a lecture) he needed to get this piece done before dinner.  
  
Groaning at the chimes of responsibility clanging in his head, he went to retrieve his paintbrush from where he'd thrown it earlier. Plugging his earphones in, he stared determinedly at the part-finished painting, before sweeping his brush decisively through the paint on his palette.  
  
With The Damned blasting in his ears, he set to work.  
  
~#~  
  
"Enjolras?" came a voice from what seemed like a long way away. "Enjolras?"  
  
The blond student raised his head blearily from the book he'd been reading. "'Ferre?" he asked, trying to work out why the taller man sounded concerned.  
  
The philosophy student sat down opposite him. "Everything alright?"  
  
Enjolras gave him a funny look. "Yeah, why wouldn't it be?"  
  
'Ferre raised an eyebrow. "Well, other than the fact that you were using that book as a pillow not a minute ago..." he trailed off expressively.  
  
Enjolras felt himself pinned by his best friend's penetrating gaze. He tried to avoid it, but god, he was too tired for this shit.  
  
"You're not sleeping again." It wasn't a question.  
  
"That's somewhat inaccurate -" he started, but Combeferre's 'don't give me that shit' expression cut him off. "I slept a bit," he tried. "I just... I've got a lot of stuff to get done this week, you know? I've got two papers due in by Friday, about five different bits of reading, training, debating notes to work on, not to mention stuff for ABC-"  
  
"Enjolras." The blond man looked up, suddenly noticing how he'd been rambling. 'Ferre's expression was concerned. "You need to slow down."  
  
"I -"  
  
"No." Combeferre was not in the mood for this shit. He had gone through years of seeing his friend work himself into the ground; he was damned if it was going to happen this early into term. "You need to."  
  
Enjolras tried to protest. (It was, after all, something he was very good at.) "'Ferre, I'm fine-"  
  
"You're patently not. I know for a fact you didn't get to bed before two this morning, nor the day before-"  
  
"What are you, my mother?" Enjolras exclaimed, but Combeferre kept talking. "- and no amount of coffee is going to replace you getting enough sleep. It might have worked the last few days, but you're a wreck today."  
  
"No I'm not," he replied, instinctively disagreeing. Combeferre would have found it endearing if he hadn't been so worried.  
  
"Bullshit, Enjolras. Your head was an absolute shed this morning - you'd completely forgotten about Marius and the photos. As Courf so kindly pointed out,  you DON'T forget things." Enjolras made a grumbling noise. "And now I come in here and find you asleep, face down in a copy of JS Mill." 'Ferre's face softened. "Seriously, you need to get some sleep."  
  
"But I've got work to do," the history student protested.  
  
"You and I both know that you can do more work that previously thought feasible in a space of time that would make mere mortals-"  
  
"Read: Courfeyrac," snarked Enjolras, knowing it was a low blow. Courf had got two A*s and two As at A level, and Enjolras well knew how smart he really was.  
  
"- whimper. You're just trying to do everything all at once, to some stupid standard, and it's tiring you out." He paused. "What was it you were doing last night?"  
  
Enjolras flushed. Combeferre knew that look. "Well?"  
  
The slightly shorter man looked down. "I... I was working on stuff for the debate next week."  
  
"By which you mean you were making detailed notes on every possible argument that you could be asked to take, and the rebuttal for it." The philosophy student paused again. Effect was everything when you were talking to a bloke with designs on overthrowing the government. "When you well know the debate team are having a meeting on Friday to talk this all over."  
  
"I just like to be prepared," he said weakly. And that, if anything, was a sign of how tired Enjolras was. 'Weak' was not a word that applied to him. 'Terrifying' and 'intimidating' were most strangers' choices.  
  
"No, you like to be the best in the room at everything you do," responded Combeferre. "Just... just chill out, okay?"  
  
"You're starting to sound like Courfeyrac," mumbled Enjolras, dropping his head to the table again.  
  
"Well, he couldn't be here for this particular intervention, so I had to embody both of us for the full effect." He waited expectantly.  
  
After a minute, Enjolras grunted into the book. "Ugh, fine, I'll 'chill out', as you put it."  
  
"Good. This needed to be nipped in the bud before you got yourself to your usual state. It's far too early in the term for you to be at that stage." Whilst Combeferre's tone was light, there was real worry in his voice. "Anyway, I have a lecture I need to get to. I'll see you later." He made to leave, standing up and readjusting his messenger bag.  
  
Enjolras lifted his head. "Sorry, 'Ferre," he said quietly.  
  
"It's okay, 'Jolras. It's okay."  
  
He watched his friend wend his way out of the library.  
  
Stop trying to be the best at everything. He could do that...  
  
Right?  
  
~#~  
  
"Honey, I'm home!" yelled Grantaire as he came in the door to his and Cosette's flat.  
  
"If you get paint on the walls -"  
  
The artist jumped as Cosette came up behind him as he kicked his shoes off by the door. "Jesus, Cozzy, don't do that!"  
  
She smacked him with her book. "And don't call me Cozzy!"  
  
"That bloody hurt, you harpy! What the hell even was that?!" He leant down to survey the text. It was some massive book of criticism. "God, that looks boring."  
  
"Go wash your hands and change your clothes. You're covered in paint." She walked back to the living room, sinking down on their little sofa and reopening the tome.  
  
"Yes, mother!" he yelled as he made for his bedroom.  
  
He was rewarded with a dainty, French-manicured middle finger.  
  
Half an hour later, he was (mainly) paint free, in clean(ish) clothes and towel-drying his hair. He leant down behind Cosette, who hadn't moved from the sofa.  
  
"Natural writing is immediately united to the voice and to breath. Its nature is not grammatological but pneumatogical," he read aloud. "That sounds awful. Why on earth you, Jehan and Courf put up with it, I don't know."  
  
She half heartedly fended at him. "You did English lit a level, you tosser."  
  
He grinned, and made his way into the kitchen. "Speaking of those two, are they still gazing at each other in classes?"  
  
Cosette groaned, throwing her book over her face, which must have hurt. "Oh god, you've no idea. I was sat between them the other day, and every time I raised my head Jehan would be staring dreamily at Courfeyrac, or Courfeyrac would be giving the side of Jehan's head bedroom eyes."  
  
"Pair of idiots," Grantaire said fondly as he started pulling ingredients out of the fridge. He was quite glad they (read: Cosette) had done the shopping the other day. "Enchiladas sound alright?"  
  
"Divine."

“How was your day, anyway?” he called as he started chopping up chicken.

“Quite good. Had an interesting seminar on the portrayal of women in Victorian literature earlier. And I got my essay back from Bienvenu.”

“Oh yeah? What did he give you?”

“An A.”

“Damn straight,” Grantaire approved.

“Did you get your piece finished?” asked Cosette, looking over her shoulder.

He saluted, still with a pepper in hand. “Handed it in at dead on five.”

“Impressive. Actually giving it in before the day it’s due.” Cosette appraised him. “I’m guessing that means you’re not planning on getting up tomorrow morning, if you’ve already handed in it today.”

“Oh, you know me too well, dear Lark.” The name had been Jehan’s creation, back when the pair of them had discovered their new friend’s beautiful singing voice. “I’m going out with Bahorel at eight thirty.”

Cosette flopped down against the sofa cushions. “Meanwhile, I will be here, working through this godawful chapter of this godawful book.”

“No chance you can put it off and come out with me and Big B?” asked Grantaire hopefully.

She rolled into the sofa, face hidden. Her voice was muffled when she replied. “Not all of us can get away with ignoring work til the last minute, R. No, I’ve got to get this done before tomorrow.”

“Alright then.”

~#~

Courfeyrac was bored. This often happened to him, especially after an afternoon of actually working (say it isn’t so! a small voice that sounded distinctly like Enjolras and Combeferre combined chimed in his head).

“Eponiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine,” he wheedled, leaning over her shoulder as she worked on something on her laptop. “Come play with meeeeeeee.”

“Courf, nine times out of ten I would agree – as you well know, considering the number of times you’ve had to boost me in through the kitchen window at three in the morning when we’ve forgotten keys – but right now I really have to get this work done.”

“But Eponiiiiine!”

“What bit of ‘I have to get this done’ didn’t you understand?”

“But what about the Party Flat Pledge?” He had that in writing somewhere. He could go find it, he thought.

“Courf, I swear to god, if you don’t let me finish this, I will tell the man in the corner shop to stop selling you Tangfastics.”

Courfeyrac froze. Party Flat Pledge or not, he was not risking the Tangfastics.

“I’ll call ‘Ferre,” he said, slinking off to his room.

“There’s a good boy.”

~#~

Enjolras sloped into the kitchen of the flat he shared with Combeferre, yawning, ruffling his hair. “Have we got any food in?” he asked sleepily.

“There’s some of the spag bol I had for dinner,” replied the other man from his seat at the kitchen table.

“Ah, fantastic.” He tugged the bowl out of the fridge and shoved it in the microwave. “Nuking it won’t give me any of those things Joly’s always on about, will it?”

“Well, we’ll find out,” Combeferre replied, turning a page of his newspaper. Enjolras gave him the finger, before rattling about in the cutlery drawer for a fork.

The microwave chimed, and Enjolras grabbed his dinner and sort of fell into a seat. Combeferre eyed him. “You really aren’t at all graceful, you know that?”

“Thanks, darling,” Enjolras replied, sticking his fork into the pasta. He ate for a couple of minutes, before noticing that he was being surveyed. “Do you have to watch me while I’m eating? It’s horribly disconcerting.”

“Told you a nap would make you feel better.”

“Oh, fuck off.”

~#~

“Give Bahorel my love,” called Cosette as Grantaire pulled his jacket off the coat rack.

“Will do.”

“And if you wake me up at three in the morning, I’ll conveniently forget how happy those fantastic enchiladas made me, and castrate you.”

Jacket now on, he dashed over to kiss Cosette on the forehead. “I promise I won’t disturb your beauty sleep, little Lark.”

She smacked at him, but she was smiling. “Have a good time. Try not to get too annihilated.”

He spun around in front of the door, grinning. “Me? Drunk?”

“Oh, get away with you.”

Grantaire grinned wider. “See you later, Cosette.”

~#~

Enjolras slammed shut the lid of his laptop. There was nothing more he could do on his essay until he’d been to the library again in the morning.

Of course, he could go there now, seeing as it was open 24/7, but he had a feeling Combeferre would lynch him if he even mentioned any such thing.

The point was, he’d done plenty of work for the evening, and could legitimately stop. Definitely. He didn’t feel at all bad about that. Nope. Not at all.

“Enjolras?”

“Hello?”

“Courf’s just texted me. Asked if we want to come for a drink at the Musain in about half an hour.”

Enjolras considered. He looked down at his closed laptop and the mess of paper strewn across his desk. And that decided it.

“Give me five to get ready, ‘Ferre.”

~#~

“So, anyway, he’s been falling over every time I speed up or slow down –“

Grantaire eyed Bahorel. “Something tells me you might have capitalised on that.”

The bigger man grinned. “Ask me no questions and I’ll tell you no lies, R. Anyway, that’s funny enough, but then he leans out over the side of the boat, saying something about an arty shot or whatever, and I’m pulling the boat around in a curve so I can catch up to the boys, and the bloody prat overbalances and falls in, screaming like a little girl!” Bahorel smacked a hand against the table. “Best bit is, when he surfaces, he starts wailing that it’s cold and wet.”

Grantaire roared with laughter. “Oh, dear old Marius.” He took a pull from his pint, draining it. “D’you want another?”

“Cheers, man.”

He stood up and made his way towards the bar. The Musain was an odd little place; half café, half pub, it served coffee and cake in the day and any liquor you could name in the evening. But it was familiar, and somehow they always ended up in there on a night out.

“Hello Grantaire my dear,” beamed Mrs Huchloup, the widow that owned the place. “What can I get you?”

“Another pint of Stella, and a Leffe for me, cheers.” Grantaire might drink a lot, but he still had taste when it came to beer.

“Four seventy, please.”

Grantaire smiled and passed over a fiver. “Cheers, Mrs H,” he called as he took the two drinks over to the table.

Which now seemed to have more occupants.

“R!” exclaimed Courfeyrac with such joy that you’d have thought he’d not seen Grantaire in several years. He leapt up and threw his arms around the artist.

“Gah, watch out for the drinks, Courf!”

“I don’t care about drinks, I love you R, never leave me,” said Courf into Grantaire’s shirt. “You uphold the Party Flat Pledge even without having signed it. I love you.”

This was pretty normal behaviour from Courfeyrac, to be honest.

Bahorel took the two drinks from Grantaire’s hands, leaving them free to hug Courf back. “You’re a nutter, you know that? How much sugar have you had today?”

Courf pulled away slightly. “Eponine threatened the Tangfastics, R. She threatened them. AND she wouldn’t come out with me.”

Grantaire patted the Irishman’s mop of curls. “There, there.” Finally free of the limpet’s embrace, he returned to his seat, picking up his beer.

“Why’d ‘Ponine not come out?” asked Bahorel, taking a long drink of Stella.

“She’s got work to do, apparently,” pouted Courf.

“Bloody hell, ‘Ponine got responsible?” exclaimed Grantaire, pulling out his phone. “She isn’t hearing the end of this one.”

_The end is nigh. You’ve ditched the Party Flat Pledge. What is the world coming to._

Eponine’s response was swift and brief. _Fuck you._

“She seems cheery,” he said brightly, before taking another pull of beer.

~#~

Combeferre and Enjolras pushed their way through the doors of the Musain not ten minutes later. The latter let out an audible sigh. The Musain was comforting. It was home.

“Enjy! ‘Ferre!” cried Courf in joy, waving them over to a table that was already part occupied. Enjolras blinked, but followed Combeferre. “Look who I found here,” explained Courf, beaming.

“Bahorel… Grantaire,” Enjolras greeted the two unexpected men.

Grantaire was … a friend of his, he supposed. Perhaps more by association, than anything else; Courf had befriended him sometime during Freshers’ Week, as had Bahorel, while Feuilly shared studio space with him, and he’d become included in the friendship group that had developed over their first year.  But Enjolras couldn’t say he _knew_ Grantaire, not really. He didn’t come to their political meetings, didn’t debate in the union, didn’t attend protests… to be honest, he couldn’t see Grantaire caring about anything outside the bottles in his hand.

Because that was one thing Enjolras _did_ know about Grantaire. Grantaire liked to drink. Possibly too much. He had been to one too many parties where Grantaire had ended up on a table, or singing, or something else of an exhibitionist bent to be able to miss that particular character trait of the artist now sitting opposite him.

Grantaire raised his glass as a greeting. “Evening, gentlemen. And how are we this fine, if frosty night?”

“Well enough, thanks, Grantaire,” replied Combeferre. “Tube was a bloody shambles, though.”

“Welcome to Britain, mate,” muttered Bahorel, looking murderous, although this wasn’t particularly worrying, as Bahorel regularly looked ready to commit several brutal homicides.

‘Ferre laughed. “Hold that thought for debating on Friday, Bahorel.”

Bahorel grinned. It was a distinctly unsettling sight. Enjolras silently thanked his lucky stars that he could count Bahorel as a friend, because god knows, no one would want that as an enemy.

“Drink, anyone?” asked Grantaire, standing up. Enjolras eyed the two empty glasses in front of him already.

The others gratefully gave him their orders – including Combeferre’s fruit cider, he would be giving him hell for that later – and then Grantaire turned to the blond. “And for the lady?”

Enjolras was too taken aback to get annoyed. “Er, I don’t know. A beer. Thanks.”

“Any particular type of beer, or?” asked Grantaire, looking slightly amused.

“I don’t mind.”

“You really need to get out more,” commented Courf.

“By which you mean I need to drink more.”

“He does have a point, you know,” said Combeferre in his fake thoughtful tone. “You’re nearly twenty and you don’t know what your favourite beer is. Call yourself a King’s boy.”

“Oh, ha ha. I went to just as many parties as you did, ‘Ferre.”

“Oh yes, I remember the night you discovered Jack Daniels. That was a fun evening. D’you remember, Courf, we found him passed out on Miranda Fitzwarren’s beanbag?”

Courfeyrac laughed very loudly. “The best one was when he got high accidentally – d’you remember?”

Combeferre appeared to be trying to hold back full blown laughter, which seemed to answer his friend’s question.

“Anyway,” continued Courf, turning to Bahorel, who looked incredibly amused. “This idiot went through a bit of a rebellious phase in the lower sixth-“

“Dyed his hair black and everything,” said ‘Ferre sagaciously.

“And so he’s outside pretending to smoke-“

“I was not pretending!” said Enjolras heatedly.

“And Martin Johnson-White offers him what he thinks is a regular cigarette… and we find him a couple of hours later, trying to explain Hobbes to the fridge.”

Bahorel guffawed. Enjolras clapped a hand to his face as if he could hide behind it.

“I seem to remember you ended that particular night on my floor, mumbling about how pretty the stars were,” said Combeferre.

“I hate you both,” replied Enjolras. There was a reason he didn’t drink, or intentionally do drugs: he was a massive lightweight, and had an incredible propensity to do amazingly daft things while drunk.

Luckily, Grantaire’s arrival with the drinks prevented any more embarrassing stories about their days in sixth form being aired. Enjolras dreaded the day when The Jelly Incident was divulged, as it inevitably would be by Courfeyrac.

“One Stella, one Kopparberg, one WKD – honestly Courf, you drink like a girl – and a Grimbergen.” He slid the glass over to Enjolras. “I figured if you weren’t going to pick one, I’d choose you a nice one, not that shit that Bahorel drinks.”

Bahorel smacked him upside the head. “Ow, you fucker!”

As the others began to chat again, Enjolras took a small sip of the mysterious beer. Surprisingly, it was actually quite nice. Apparently the drunk did have taste.

“To madame’s taste?” asked Grantaire, knowing full well he was being an annoying dick. But then again, being an annoying dick had brought him this far.

“It’s passable.”

Courf kicked him under the table. It was his (and Combeferre’s) way of saying ‘be nice’. So Enjolras smiled and attempted to join the conversation.

An hour and another pint later later, Grantaire, Courfeyrac and Bahorel were well into a pitcher of some ungodly concoction. Even Combeferre had taken a glass. The four of them were looking decidedly merry, laughing and joking.

The faint nagging reminder of the essay at home killed it a little for Enjolras.

“Hey, man,” said Bahorel, leaning across to the blond, “lighten up. Have some fun.”

One glass wouldn’t hurt, he supposed. So he took the proffered drink.

“Ugh, god,” he grimaced. “That tastes like liquefied Tangfastics.”

“ _Exactly,_ ” replied Courf, like he’d found the meaning of life. “Exactly.”

A few minutes later, Enjolras’ phone buzzed. He slid it out of his pocket.

“Pontmercy’s sent me the photos from earlier,” he said. Grantaire – who was, let it be said, still incredibly normal seeming for someone who’d drunk the amount he had – grinned. “Retrieved his camera from the drink, then?”

Courf giggled tipsily. “Give us a look, Enjy.”

“Don’t bloody call me Enjy,” the blond replied, but opened the attachment and laid his phone out on the table top.

There was a brief moment of silence where the five of them surveyed the images. If you could call them that.

Then Grantaire spoke. “Those are total shit.”

“I’m so glad we weren’t paying Marius,” added Courf.

Enjolras turned to Combeferre. “We’re going to need to find another bloody photographer who’ll do it for free.”

“Joy,” replied the bespectacled man, before taking another drink.

~#~

Ten thirty rolled around, and finally Enjolras seemed to have loosened up, thought Grantaire. He was a weird bloke. Very… intense. Although, he had to say, he was absolutely gorgeous. He’d noticed it over the last year when he’d met the bloke at various gatherings of the friendship group he’d found himself in.

Of course, most of the gatherings that they had both attended were of the evening variety, and thus he’d only really spoken to him, let alone observed him, when drunk.

But hey, he was allowed to look. Even if the bloke was weird.

Combeferre was off to the bar this time. When he turned to Enjolras, as if on cue, Courf turned to Grantaire and said in a very bad West Country accent, “what’ll it be this time?”

“Another cranberry juice?” answered Grantaire in kind.

“Oh, very funny,” snarked Enjolras back. He wouldn’t admit now that he had absolutely loved Hot Fuzz. “Another Grimbergen for me, thanks, ‘Ferre.”

Grantaire’s stomach flipped. What.

“Hey, Enjy, I just had a thought.”

“Hold onto it so I can get a camera and document this momentous event.”

Courf rewarded him with a middle finger. “No, seriously, I’ve just thought; R’s a really good photographer!”

Enjolras did a double take, turning to the dark haired man, who was definitely on the wrong side of tipsy, but not anywhere near as drunk as Courf. “You?” he asked, unable to keep the disbelief out of his tone.

Grantaire felt his hackles rise. “I am an art student, you know.”

The bite in his voice didn’t pass Enjolras by. “I didn’t realise you took photographs.”

“I’m sure there are a lot of things I do that you don’t know about,” the drunk replied, and for some reason Enjolras felt himself blushing. There had been a definite innuendo in his voice.

“Well, if you’re as good as Courf says you are, come along to our practice the morning after tomorrow. We meet at five thirty… if you can get yourself up by then.”

Grantaire recognised a challenge when he saw one. He had a feeling Enjolras had decided that he was some sort of waster, owing to the drinking and general disregard for responsibility. And he didn’t like the bloke judging him so easily, and on so little. He barely knew the guy, shared friendships or not!

“I’ll see you there.”

Combeferre chose this moment to return with the drinks. Enjolras turned to him. “Oh, ‘Ferre, we seem to have a photographer after all.”

“Oh really?” replied the mousy haired man benignly, passing out drinks.

“Indeed. Apparently Grantaire here is a good photographer.” The challenge in his tone was so palpable you could chew it.

Combeferre sat down. “Excellent. I’m sure your artistic sensibilities will be somewhat superior to those of Mr Pontmercy,” he smiled at Grantaire, who raised his glass to him in return.

Enjolras looked at the artist again. He perceptibly lifted his chin, holding Enjolras’ gaze. And then he lifted his glass to the blond.

A challenge he’d given? A challenge he’d get.

~#~

God, it was way too early for this shit. But, y’know, he had something to prove here.

So here he was, at five fucking thirty in the fucking morning, freezing his arse off, standing outside the university boat house.

“So, essentially, if you want to stand on the bank and take some there, you can do that, but you’ll be left behind after a while, or you can come in the boat, and risk doing a Pontmercy,” Enjolras was saying. The faint look of disbelief he’d worn at the Musain was still on his face, and it made Grantaire feel a horrible mix of annoyed and just plain turned on. Why did the bloke have to be so fucking beautiful _and_ so dismissive?

He suddenly realised that said beauty was waiting on an answer.

He had to think a second. “How’s about I take a few while you’re just setting up the boat –“ he shot a questioning glance at Courf over Enjolras’ shoulder, who nodded vigorously – “and then I jump in the boat and follow you down the river?”

Enjolras turned to look at Combeferre. They shared a wordless moment of communication, then the blonde turned back to Grantaire. “Sounds fine.”

“Alright then.” Grantaire turned to his camera, turning it on and starting to fiddle with the lenses. Behind him, he was faintly aware of the four rowers getting their craft out.

“’R, come over here, we’ll find you a lifejacket,” chirped Jehan, skipping over. Grantaire smiled, then followed his oldest friend over to the inside of the boathouse.

“If he fucks this up,” started Enjolras, hissing in Courfeyrac’s ear.

“Dude. Shut the fuck up. R’s safe.” The Irishman refrained from adding what was bubbling on his tongue. He loved Enjolras like a brother, but sometimes he was a real dick.

With Enjolras thus silenced, Combeferre began to coordinate the four into getting the boat down to the river. The bowman tried to hide his smile.

Grantaire snapped a few shots of the four as they lifted the boat down to the river. There was something rather striking about the four men carrying their craft across the deserted towpath, their faces pale in the streetlights. All long lines and slight curves, in a stark chiaroscuro.

He watched as the four of them placed the boat in the water and began attaching oars quicker than he could believe.

Then he swallowed. Hard.

The four had begun stripping off their baggy outer layers. The other three’s divesting didn’t bother him, but… Enjolras. The blond had tugged off his huge hoodie and tracksuit trousers, and was now standing in a long sleeved thermal, a couple of tee shirts, a thin gilet and a pair of neoprene leggings so tight that it was damn lucky that no one was looking at Grantaire’s trousers right now.

This was going to kill him.

He watched, rapt, as the other three got into the boat, taking up oars. And then Enjolras planted one foot inside the boat and used his other to push them off into the river.

The flex of muscle Grantaire witnessed was damn near obscene and was doing nothing for his little situation.

Courf’s shout of “left blades only” brought him back to earth. He grabbed his camera.

They were quite something. Even just warming up, he could see that they were perfectly in time with one another, all following Enjolras’ pace.

He snorted behind the camera. Of bloody course Enjolras the golden god _would_ be the bloke leading the boat.

The quad was halfway to Barn Elms when Grantaire decided to jump ship from the bank, making towards the launch that still hadn’t set off.

“You’re not going to fall in, are you?” asked Bahorel.

“Dude, I’m a high functioning drunk. I can balance _anywhere_.”

The launch powered along after the quad, coming to rest just before it. “Alright, fuckers-“

“Do you have to call us that?” asked Courf. “How about, ‘dear friends’?”

“Shut up, Courf. Anyway, let’s have a two k, shall we?”

Jehan brandished the megaphone and the stopwatch. “Ready… set… go.”

Grantaire wasn’t expecting the explosion of speed that he witnessed. It was insane. The boat took off, shooting forward across the river.

“Holy shit…” he trailed off, raising his camera.

He snapped shot after shot, holding his balance (as promised) when Bahorel gunned the engine to keep up with the boat.

“How do they do it?” he asked Jehan in amazement when the sprint was done, and the rowers were maintaining a lower pace.

Jehan held back a smile at the cynic’s pure wonder, and shrugged. “Beats me. They’re a strong bunch, and with Enjolras at stroke…” The poet shot the artist a furtive look, trying to gauge his reaction to the last bit.

The practice continued in much the same way as it had the day before yesterday, but this time, actual photography took place. As well as some unashamed ogling. But mainly photography.

Halfway to Barnes, Bahorel drew the launch close enough that Grantaire could take a closeup of the four as they sprinted.

The artist in Grantaire could have cried. Even the cynic was amazed at the sight before him. It was something entirely other.

Feuilly's features had taken on his famous 'rowing face', shoulders straight, following his leader's every move, just like at the Musain on weekday evenings. Courf was occasionally shouting commands, while continuing to match the pace. And Combeferre was serene in the back, steering and maintaining a stroke so perfect that it was like a geometric tracing.  
  
But Enjolras... Enjolras looked like some sort of Greek god, perfect straight back, muscles straining and hair gleaming in the faint morning light.  
  
Oh, Grantaire was fucked.


	2. Don't Get Me Wrong

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which some people make friends, others moon, and yet others argue. And all the while, they worry over each other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hiya! Another shiny chapter for you lot! I've had a lovely response to this so far; I'm so chuffed!
> 
> Less rowing this time around
> 
> And some angst oooooohhhh

Courfeyrac sighed. Sweet, perfect, wonderful Jean Prouvaire. Pure and innocent and just so... lovely.  
  
He gazed across the library to the table where the poet was sitting with Cosette. The small smile on Jehan's face as he wrote down something in one of his many notebooks could have lit up the entire room. Courfeyrac was sure he could detect the faint smell of patchouli and green tea, and the flowers that were perennially tucked into Jehan's strawberry blond hair.  
  
He sighed again.  
  
"I swear to god, Courf, if you don't stop sighing instead of writing your bloody essay," hissed Eponine, "I will tell Grantaire that you were the one who fraped him last week."  
  
This was a very real threat indeed. Grantaire had promised actual bodily harm to the perpetrator. And Eponine was clearly not in a joking mood, considering that Grantaire had his face pressed against the table the three of them had commandeered in the library. The only reason the artist hadn't heard that dangerous bit of information was the pair of earphones jammed in his ears, playing Fall Out Boy very loudly.  
  
Or, y'know, the fact that he was fast asleep on the table.  
  
Courfeyrac turned wounded eyes upon his flatmate. "You have no love in your heart, 'Ponine."  
  
"I think you've plenty for the both of us, judging on the lovelorn sighs leaving your big mouth every couple of minutes. Just stop ogling Flower Power and do your bloody essay, for the sake of my sanity!"  
  
This last outburst had the effect of waking Grantaire, who raised his head muzzily. "Whuzz goinon?" he asked blearily.  
  
"The leprechaun is being a lovesick idiot. Again."  
  
"I resent that remark."  
  
"And I resent you disturbing my INCREDIBLY DIFFICULT DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS with your boner for Tooting's answer to Shakespeare," replied Eponine, dangerously. "God, I think I preferred it when you were in slut mode, shagging anything with a pulse, instead of this MOONING."  
  
"Shut UP, 'Ponine!" hissed Courf, looking frantically over at Jehan.  
  
"Darling, Jehan knows you're a slut. Cosette knows you're a slut. Most of this library knows you're a slut. It's part of your charm, really."  
  
Grantaire had to agree, really. Courfeyrac's capacity for love spilled out of every affectionate pore.  
  
Courf opened his mouth, then shut it again. "I hate you," he muttered into his scarf.  
  
"No you don't," smirked Eponine, returning to her physics.  
  
~#~  
  
On the other side of the university, Enjolras was not having a good morning.  
  
"Joly, for fuck's sake, stop peering into my eyes like that, I'm fine!"  
  
The lanky medical student was not deterred, however, and pulled out a torch. "You've got bags under your eyes - don't pretend you've slept enough because I know you haven't - you could have fatal familial insomnia!"  
  
Bahorel raised his head from his economics textbook. "Joly, you have got to be kidding me."  
  
The skinnier man looked over to the brawler. "It's an incredibly dangerous disease, we need to know if he has it!"  
  
Enjolras closed his eyes. "Tell me, Joly, what's the treatment for fatal familial insomnia?"  
  
"Oh, none at all. It kills you within eighteen months."  
  
Enjolras dropped his head to the cafeteria table.  
  
~#~  
  
By lunchtime, Grantaire had just about woken up enough to be able to function as a normal human being. Leaving Eponine in the library - Courf had buggered off to some lecture about historiography or whatever - he sloped down to one of the university's many cafes.  
  
Hands deep in his green hoodie's pockets, he walked across the south quad, making for the smell of food. He had a lecture on Greek art at one thirty, which gave him forty minutes to eat lunch and get to the lecture hall. Normally Grantaire wouldn't particularly care about timeliness, but classical art fascinated him. Classics had been an interest of his since he could remember.  
  
I mean, who wouldn't love societies who drank only wine, built rooms to vomit in so they could continue stuffing themselves, and put pretty men fucking each other on vases?  
  
The cafe was warm, thankfully, compared to the icy cold outside. Grantaire ordered himself a stupid amount of lasagne and a beer, then sat down at a table near a radiator and a window. If the girl at the counter was taken aback by him drinking at lunchtime, she didn't show it. Besides, being a drunk meant that Grantaire didn't really care what people thought of his drinking.  
  
The food, when it came, was piping hot. He ended up having to down a third of his beer after scarfing down the lasagne so fast it burned his throat.  
  
"That looked painful," said a familiar voice. Grantaire looked up quickly, well aware that he probably looked idiotic, as Eponine had often informed him.  
  
"Hello, Combeferre." The tall philosophy student was carrying a tray with a sandwich, a bowl of soup, and a scarily large cup of tea.  
  
"Mind if I sit here?"  
  
"Course not." Combeferre placed his tray down, then folded himself into the seat opposite the artist. "How are you, Grantaire?"  
  
"Eh, okay. Did sort of sleep through this morning when I was supposed to be doing sketchbook writeup, but hey..."  
  
Combeferre's lips twitched as if he were holding back amusement. "Do you ever do your work on time, Grantaire?"  
  
The shorter man grinned. "Only very occasionally. By which I mean, when my flatmate yells at me."  
  
Combeferre laughed, stirring his soup. He had met Miss Fauchelevent several months before, at the pub (where else) with Jehan and Grantaire. "Cosette, right?" Grantaire nodded, mouth too full of lasagne to respond orally. "I've never asked; how on earth did you two end up friends?"  
  
Grantaire swallowed. "You mean, how did the princess-like personification of sweetness and light end up with a paint-splattered drunk as a flatmate?"  
  
"Those wouldn't quite have been my words, but pretty much."  
  
Grantaire laughed. He liked Combeferre. The philosophy student often seemed serious, but in the year he'd known the man, he'd come to know his gentle nature and excellent sense of humour. Oh, and his incredible gift for sarcasm that almost matched Grantaire's own.  
  
"She went to school down the road from where Jehan and I did. I was the scabby state school kid she bumped into at the Tate just before sixth form started. She was a shy little thing, but we ended up talking about Millais for a couple of hours and getting the tube together. She came to a couple of Jehan's poetry readings, let me paint her for my Art homework, and before any of us knew it, the two of us were round at Casa Valjean three nights of the week. Her dad still doesn't really know what to make of it, the flower bedecked poet who braids Cosette's hair, or my own paintstained, alcohol-drenched self."  
  
Combeferre watched the cynical student's face transform as he recounted the tale. In the months he'd known Grantaire, he'd seen him laugh, seen him smile - seen him dancing on tables - but he'd rarely seen him light up like that.  
  
"Oh, and there was the incident where I stood under her window at one am singing 'Don't Cry For Me Argentina'," finished Grantaire. Combeferre raised an eyebrow. "She was going through an Evita phase. The tequila thought it was a good idea." He took a pull of his beer. "Needless to say, Big Papa Valjean did not."  
  
"You make the man sound like a mobster."  
  
Grantaire gave Combeferre a serious look. "That isn't far from the truth. The man is massive, and terrifying if you don't know him, especially once you hear he did serious jail time before he adopted Cosette."  
  
"Remind me not to upset your roommate," said Combeferre drily. "On account of both her father and you."  
  
"Me? I'm not at all scary." Grantaire grinned. "Speaking of scary things, I've got to say: I've never seen anything like your rowing practice yesterday." He can't keep the awe out of his voice.  
  
Combeferre smiled slightly. "I'll take that as a compliment."  
  
"No, seriously," continued the artist, gesturing with his inky hands, "how the hell do you even do it?"  
  
Combeferre considered. He'd been rowing long enough that it rather came naturally to him. He didn't really think about it. It was one of the many comforts of the sport for him.  
  
"I don't really know," he said honestly. "Courf, Enjolras and I have been rowing since we were in fourth form -" Grantaire's expression was blank. "Year nine."  
  
"Ah."  
  
"And so it sort of comes naturally, I guess. When we met Feuilly in the first term of last year, we found the perfect final component to our squad. It just... works, I suppose. I can't really explain it, other than the empirical facts."  
  
Grantaire nodded. "Fair enough. I guess I can't explain how exactly I paint, I've been doing it long enough for it to become instinctive."  
  
"Exactly," smiled the philosophy student. "Just as arguing comes naturally to Enjolras, and flirting comes to Courfeyrac-"  
  
"And being the single most reasoned person in the building comes to you?" Grantaire asked, smirking slightly.  
  
Combeferre bowed his head, hair falling across his eyes. "I'll take that as a compliment too."  
  
Grantaire grinned wider. He liked Combeferre a lot, he'd decided.  
  
"So how did your photos come out?" asked the rower, taking a bite of sandwich.  
  
"Dunno yet," replied Grantaire. "Shot on film. I'll show them to you once I have."  
  
Combeferre waved a hand. "Eh, don't rush. I know your work is solid."  
  
"More than can be said for Blondie," muttered Grantaire without thinking.  
  
"Blondie?" chuckled Combeferre, startling the dark haired man. He'd been expecting some sort of rebuke; Combeferre was Enjolras' best friend, after all. "I must remember to try that one on him."  
  
Grantaire looked up at the tall man sat opposite him with a small smile on his face. "You know, I think I could like you a lot, Combeferre."  
  
~#~

“Okay, chaps, that’s all for today. Next week we’re going to be looking at different philosophies of ruling, so I’d like you to read over The Prince, Leviathan and The Social Contract,” announced Dr Mabeuf, clapping her hands. A small chorus of groans echoed through the lecture hall. “Of course, if you’ve done your summer reading, that shouldn’t be too taxing. Class dismissed.”

“I’ve never been more glad you made me do the reading over the summer,” said Courfeyrac to Enjolras as the pair of them made their way down the banked seating to the door.

“What would you do without me,” replied the blond drily, resettling his bag’s strap on his shoulder.

“Fail my classes miserably?” said the Irishman cheerily. It was in Courfeyrac’s habit to downplay his own abilities. Then again, he well knew how hopeless he had a habit of being.

Enjolras rolled his eyes in a manner that Courfeyrac well knew was affectionate. “Don’t be ridiculous, Courf.”

“Aww, Enjy, was that actual sentiment?”

Enjolras cuffed him over the head. “Stop being a twat, Courf.” But he was smiling, if only very faintly.

“How are you doing, anyway?” asked the darker haired man as they made their way out into the corridor. “You were a bit of a mess earlier in the week.”

Courf’s tone was light, but Enjolras had been friends with him for far too long to miss the concern in his tone. It was an exceptional talent of his; the ability to talk to someone about their wellbeing without sounding too heavy. He was just incredibly comforting.

And so Enjolras was honest. “I’m alright now. ‘Ferre made me sleep and put a few things on hold.”

Courf nodded. “Sounds like a plan. Did you get your work done?”

Enjolras didn’t even bother asking how his friend knew that he’d been stressing over work. Courf simply knew him too well.

That, and the fact that Courf and ‘Ferre gossiped like a pair of girls.

“I’m handing one in after my next class, and the politics one I’ll get finished tonight after training.” Enjolras smiled. It wasn’t the broad beam he wore after winning a race or debate, or after a successful rally, but it was getting there.

Relieved, Courf flung an arm around his best friend’s waist. “I’m glad, ‘Jolras.”

It comforted him more than Enjolras would ever know when the blond wrapped his around the shorter man’s shoulders.  
  
~#~  
  
"Now put your hands in the air for the saviour," sang Grantaire along with his iPod, bobbing his head to the beat as he dipped photographs into developer.  
  
It would probably have been easier to shoot on a digital camera, but he liked film. (He'd nearly cried when they stopped making Polaroids.) It was just... nicer.  
  
Which is why he was currently pratting about in the art department's dark room. The red lights were giving him a headache, not to mention the pungent chemicals, but he liked doing it.  
  
Also, he had had far too many experiences of photos being ruined by the developers at Boots, and he wasn't risking these photos. Not after Blondie's disdain. He could just imagine the smug git's face as he told him that the prints had been rendered worthless. No sir.  
  
Grantaire deftly picked up a photo and attached it to the drying line hanging in front of his face. A shot of the team walking their boat down to the river, it was nicely composed, if he said so himself.  
  
Shuffle granted him a Fall Out Boy song as he picked up the next set of photos from the developer. Anyone who walked into the darkroom would have been greeted by the sight of Grantaire shaking his hips to I Don't Care as he clipped wet prints to the drying line.  
  
The full set now drying, he allowed himself to survey his handiwork.  
  
They were good. Grantaire knew they were. He was self critical enough to tell when he'd actually produced something good. And this time, he had.  
  
He lifted a close up shot, taken as the quad powered away from the launch, to examine it closer.  
  
It had caught Enjolras at the very front of his stroke (if that was the term). Arms stretched out in front of him, knees spread, the picture wouldn't have flattered anyone who didn't look like a Greek god.  
  
But with Enjolras, it was actually beautiful. The straining muscles, waves of golden hair and the expression of total determination combined to form the image of someone far too unearthly to be real.  
  
Grantaire rubbed a hand over his forehead. This was not good.  
  
~#~  
  
Enjolras' phone buzzed in his pocket. Setting aside his cup of coffee, he slid it out.  
  
Hi. Grantaire here. I've got the prints of the photos. D'you want to meet so you can inspect them?  
  
How on earth had Grantaire gotten his number?  
  
The next text answered that question for him.  
  
Oh, yeah, Courf gave me your number.  
  
Of course it had been. Enjolras quickly typed out a response.  
  
Can't you just email me them?  
  
I shot on film, came the response. I don't want to waste time mucking about with the awful art department scanner until I know they meet your approval.  
  
There was definite cheek in that tone, thought Enjolras.  
  
Alright then. I'm free this afternoon around three thirty.  
  
What would you know, so am I. Union?  
  
I'll see you there.  
  
~#~  
  
The Union was one of Grantaire's favourite places in London, simply because it stocked all the stupid sweets he loved. And, y'know, it was only a couple of minutes from UCL itself, and a couple more to Russell Square and the British Museum.  
  
At this moment, however, it was more about the sweets.  
  
Slapping down a handful of change on the counter, he grabbed his six quid's worth of sugary junk and headed for a table. He'd turned up deliberately early, determined to prove Blondie wrong.  
  
He might be an irresponsible drunk, but he was damn good with a camera, and no snippy politics student with hair like a pre-Raphaelite was going to piss on that.  
  
Grantaire shoved most of the sweets in his bag, before pulling out his sketchbook and shoving his earphones in.  
  
Vaguely chewing on a strawberry lace, he began sketching the view from outside the window. Might as well do something fun while waiting for the blond wanker.  
  
~#~  
  
Enjolras, feeling decidedly lighter after handing in his essay on the Spanish Second Republic, strode quickly along Gower Street. The essay had been one of his best, allowing him to relax a little. No need to worry about consistency when he'd just handed that labour of love in.  
  
The politics essay due in on Friday was still a little worrying, but he would get straight onto it when he got home. It was half done already, he told himself, determined to appreciate his good mood.  
  
He turned right into the Union, then surveyed the mass of tables.  
  
It took him a moment to find the artist, but after a second Enjolras spotted his green beanie at a table by the windows, sketching madly. He wended his way through the tables, nodding at a couple of people he knew as he passed.  
  
When he reached the table, he had a little shock at the speed with which Grantaire's pencil was moving. He had half-expected the artist to have a drink beside him, but the only thing on the table besides the sketchbook was a packet of sweets.  
  
"Afternoon," said Enjolras cordially. (Combeferre may or may not have given him a lecture about his attitude towards the artist when they'd gotten home from the Musain on Monday night.)  
  
Grantaire looked up so fast it was comical. The picture was completed by the mouthful of what appeared to be strawberry laces.  
  
Eyes bugging out, Grantaire quickly swallowed. "God, sorry."  
  
Faintly amused, Enjolras sat down opposite the man who was defined as a friend of his, but who he'd never been alone with before. "Worse things happen at sea."  
  
"That was a Frank Turner reference, wasn't it?"  
  
Enjolras started slightly, then remembered a conversation with Grantaire at Courfeyrac's birthday party last year. One of the few things he'd ever spoken about with the drunk was music. If you talked to Enjolras about music, you talked about Frank Turner at least once a conversation.  
  
"Might have been."  
  
Grantaire gave that irritating grin of his. Then it vanished, as if he remembered this was not a social call.  
  
The dark haired man pulled a wallet of photographs out of his battered messenger bag.  
  
"Alright, so, here they are." He passed the taller man the wallet.  
  
Grantaire watched as the rower extracted the sheaf of photos and began to leaf through them. He refused to admit how nervous he was. What did it matter if this posh wanker in his scarlet coat (who the hell even wore a red coat?) didn't like his photos?  
  
After the fifth or sixth photo, Enjolras looked up. "These are really good." The praise had a slightly grudging tone.  
  
"I thank you," replied Grantaire, bowing his head.  
  
Enjolras continued to look through the pictures, careful to hold only the edges. Grantaire appreciated that.  
  
When he reached the beginning again, he looked up. "Courf wasn't lying, was he?"  
  
Grantaire gave the blonde his famous shit-eating grin.  
  
Enjolras fought the urge to glare, or, worse, roll his eyes. He turned businesslike.  
  
"Moving on from inflating your ego, do you think you could scan these and send them to me?"  
  
Grantaire nodded. "I've got studio time tomorrow, I can sort it out then. Which ones do you want?"  
  
"All of them," said the blond, as if it were obvious.  
  
"You're having a laugh."  
  
Enjolras looked - good god, why didn't he have his camera to document this moment - puzzled.  "Why would I be?"  
  
Grantaire quickly backtracked. "I dunno, just taken aback that you're so enthusiastic about them."  
  
After you were so bloody rude, was the unspoken codicil that both men heard.  
  
Enjolras bit the inside of his cheek. Combeferre and Courfeyrac were both kicking him in spirit. "I was... impolite. At the Musain."  
  
"You were," agreed Grantaire, reaching forward to take the photos and put them back in their wallet. Stupid git hadn't apologised, not really.  
  
Enjolras chewed his cheek again. He really wasn't good at this. He didn't have anything in common with Grantaire; he had no idea how to talk to the bloke. "Anyway," he began, and Grantaire's hopes of an apology were dashed, "after seeing the quality of these shots, I wonder; do you think you could take some more of the whole boat club? We have a big practice on Saturday afternoon, and Wednesday and Thursday evenings."  
  
Grantaire stared at him.  
  
"We need some pictures of the boat club for recruiting and the boathouse website, and clearly you're good with a camera." Enjolras appeared to misread Grantaire's silence. "We can't really afford to pay you much, but -"  
  
Grantaire's brain finally kicked into action. "Oh, I don't care about that; just buy me a few drinks and it's all square."  
  
Enjolras' lips thinned slightly. Oh, of course the Greek god wouldn't approve. Just when Grantaire had thought he was being nice.  
  
"So you'll do it?"  
  
"Oh sure," replied Grantaire. "Us lowly art students get a lot of free time."  
  
Enjolras got the feeling he was being mocked.  "Which practice can you come to?" he asked brusquely.  
  
"Well, I have a prior arrangement this evening, and Saturday it's meant to rain..." The blond's expression turned ever more stony. "Oh, relax, Blondie, I'm just fucking with you. I'll come down on Saturday. Might as well pick up Courf and Feuilly after."  
  
Enjolras didn't even bother asking what the three men would be doing on a Saturday night. He didn't have to. His lip curled slightly.

Grantaire didn’t miss that, and had to bite back a retort.  
  
"Fine. I'd get there at about one-thirty. We'll run two sessions."  
  
"Yessir," saluted Grantaire, already back to 'annoying shit' mode.  
  
Enjolras bit his tongue. He pulled the strap of his bag over his shoulder, preparing to leave.  
  
"Oh, wait, chuck me your email address," burst out Grantaire. He dug in a pocket and held out his phone to the taller man.  
  
Enjolras quickly typed in his email, then passed - yes, passed, he definitely didn't shove - the phone back.  
  
"I'll see you on Saturday," he said, then stood up to leave. “Don’t be late.”  
  
"Wouldn't miss it for the world," replied Grantaire in the most sarcastic tone he could muster. God, this guy was a prick.  
  
Enjolras resisted the urge to give Grantaire the finger as he walked away.  
  
~#~  
  
"He's coming back on Saturday," said Enjolras to Combeferre as they walked down the towpath together.  
  
"Who is?"  
  
"The photographer. Grantaire."  
  
Combeferre raised an eyebrow. "Oh?"  
  
"He showed me the photos from Wednesday, earlier." Combeferre said nothing. "They're good. Very good."  
  
"Of course they are," replied the taller man. "Didn't you see his work at the summer exhibition last year?"  
  
Enjolras racked his brain. He'd gone to that exhibit to see Feuilly's work; he greatly admired the ginger giant and had gone along to support him. But Grantaire?

Well, put it this way, the drunk had never really featured on his radar as someone to respect, let alone like, before.

Combeferre gave him a look. “Don’t you remember? The set of portraits?”

Now that rang a bell. Suddenly, he was greeted with a clear image of a triptych of faces. Grantaire had painted Cosette, Jehan and himself; the portraits of his friends had been beautiful, struck through with light and joy, framed in small photographs of the pair dancing through a summer park.

However, the striking thing about the piece (now that Enjolras had actually bothered to remember seeing it) had been the central portrait, the one of Grantaire himself. It had been dark, with the artist facing away from the viewpoint of the picture. In contrast to the summery, bright images framing the other two portraits, Grantaire’s image had been framed with pictures of the same park at night; dark, unsettling, lonely.

It had been a really quite stunning, not to mention affecting, piece.

 “Oh.”

Combeferre raised an eyebrow expressively. “Quite.”

Enjolras stared at the tarmac. “I was really _very_ unfair, then.”

“Incredibly so.”

“There’s a reason I didn’t have any friends before you and Courf, isn’t there?”

“Quite possibly.”

~#~

Despite the clear compliment that Enjolras had paid him earlier, Grantaire was still pissed off. Riotously pissed off. This might have had to do with the fact that he was two hours through finishing the sketchbook pages he should have done that morning, and only just halfway done, but that was beside the point.

“Fucking beautiful wanker,” he muttered as he dug around in the fridge for leftovers. Right now, he couldn’t be fucked with cooking.

It really got to him, how the bloody Greek god could be so fucking disdainful of him, even after approving his photos. Who the fuck cared if he liked a drink?

Grumbling, he shoved a piece of leftover pizza into his mouth, not caring that it was still freezing cold. He practically fell onto the sofa, switching on the TV, looking for some crap to watch while he ate his dinner.

But even Come Dine With Me, his and Jehan’s favourite crap telly, couldn’t get Blondie out of his mind.

Why did he have to be so fucking _grudging_ with his praise? Why did he have to judge Grantaire for his drinking?

Why did he have to be so fucking unearthly beautiful?

“Sod this,” he muttered, getting to his feet, “I need a drink.”

~#~

At about eight o’clock Combeferre came into Enjolras’ room, sipping from a mug of tea. “How’s the essay going?”

Enjolras looked up from his laptop. That was in of itself a good sign; he’d been known to not even look up from his work on bad days.

“I’m nearly done,” the blonde replied, pushing a hand through his hair. “Just finishing the conclusion.”

“Let me know when you’re done. We’ll get pizza or something and watch Sherlock.”

“’Ferre, I don’t think I tell you how much I love you nearly enough.”

Twenty minutes later, Enjolras came into the living room, already clad in pyjama bottoms and an old rowing training camp tee. Combeferre dropped his book and held up his phone.

“Dominos?”

Enjolras fell onto the other end of the sofa. “Oh, fuck yes.”

“What do you want?”

“I don’t care, as long as it’s horribly, horribly bad for me and doesn’t involve any fucking pineapple.”

~#~

Jehan stared at his phone where it lay beside his copy of Shakespeare’s works. He’d texted Courf just a couple of minutes before, but he was already worried. He knew Courf had gone out with Eponine tonight, as a celebration of her finally finishing the tonne of work that had kept her inside for the best part of the week.

Which was worrying.

Because he knew what Courf was like. Courf was, as he well knew, a slut. There were no two ways about it. The Irishman loved greatly and loved many.

He knew that nine times out of ten, Courf could hit on someone (or, indeed, be hit upon by someone) and end up at their flat by the end of the night.

He knew that and it didn’t bother him as a character trait; Courf was too brilliant not to love.

But it did make him jealous. He had no right to be, not really; Jehan knew that. Courf was at liberty to do whatever he pleased.

But it still hurt to think of it.

It hurt more than he liked to admit. There was a notebook hidden under his pillow – a notebook that none of his friends, not even Grantaire and Cosette, had seen – filled with poems about it.

Grantaire had quietly suggested that he tell Courf about his feelings – the feelings that had manifested sometime in March last year – but he’d refused. Jehan might be confident enough to dance through the streets of London in a green and turquoise striped jumper and pink skinny jeans with flowers in his hair, as well as being a black belt in karate, but he wasn’t good with rejection.

No, he would keep his feelings to himself. He would hold in his heart – _this impossible love_ – and go on.

Because why would Courfeyrac, wonderful, mad, fearless Courfeyrac, ever love him?

He stared at the defiantly silent phone for a minute longer, before yelling, “Marius, get the ice cream! I need to watch something that’ll make me cry while consuming large quantities of Phish Phood.”

A faint sound of affirmation sounded from the kitchen.

Sometimes he loved living with Marius.

~#~

Combeferre was setting up the DVD player when the doorbell went. “I’ll get it,” said Enjolras, getting to his feet.

Uncaring of his rather informal attire, he opened the door, paid the delivery guy and walked back to the living room. The Sherlock theme tune was already playing.

“Scandal?”

“Yes,” affirmed Enjolras, dumping the two pizza boxes on the coffee table and slumping back onto the sofa. “Not sure I can deal with Baskerville tonight.”

“You mean you’re not in the mood to hide behind me because you’re scared out of your wits?”

“You mean you’re not in the mood to cry into your sleeve at Reichenbach?” Enjolras retorted, reaching forward for a slice of pizza.

“Fuck you.”

~#~

Cosette came in the front door of the flat at just after midnight to an odd state of silence. It felt… odd.

Tiptoeing through the flat, she came to Grantaire’s room. The door was half open, the light still on.

Carefully, the English and French student pushed the door open fully, and crept into the room.

“Oh, Grantaire,” she sighed.

Her flatmate was asleep at his desk, face pressed against his sketchbook. His earphones had come loose from his ears, playing what sounded like The Clash into the quiet.

There was a half empty bottle of Jack Daniels sat next to his laptop, which still had a Wikipedia page open upon it.

Cosette knew about Grantaire’s fondness for alcohol. It would have been hard to miss. She didn’t like it, but as long as he was functioning, getting his work done and healthy, she let him be. She wished he’d give it up, but knew he wouldn’t. She’d had this fight once before, and it hadn’t been pretty.

No, as long as it didn’t get any worse, she would have to be content with trying to regulate Grantaire’s drinking whenever she could.

She walked over, and gently shook his shoulder. “R?” No response. “R, sweetie, you’re going to hurt yourself sleeping like that.”

Grantaire mumbled something incomprehensible.

“Come on, R.” She gave him a harder shake.

“Whass happenin?”

“You’re going to bed, that’s what’s happening. Come on.” She gave him a good pull, and he got to his feet, if rather unsteadily.

“How was your date?” Grantaire asked, not slurring at all. Then again, that didn’t mean much; if Grantaire was properly slurring, that was a sign that he’d be puking on your shoes in a few minutes. And Grantaire didn’t puke until he’d had twice as much as anyone else in a twelve mile radius.

So, only every couple of weeks or so.

“Shit,” replied Cosette. “Guy was a twat.” She helped him out of his shirt. Nothing fazed her; after being best friends with him and Jehan for over three years, she’d seen everything.

“Do I need to beat anyone up?” Grantaire asked fumbling with his belt.

She smiled, despite herself. “Not this time, love.”

He nodded vaguely, finally managing to get his skinny jeans off. “Good good.”

Cosette helped her best friend into his bed, pulling the duvet over him. “You get some sleep now, R.”

“Sure thing,” he yawned.

She leant down to kiss his forehead. “Night, R.”

“Night Cozzy.”

The sound of Grantaire’s soft snores echoed through the flat as Cosette brushed her teeth ten minutes later, but when she got into her own bed, she found it rather harder to get to sleep.

~#~

Friday lunchtime meant one thing and one thing alone to Enjolras.

Debate team meeting.

And so he, Courf, Bahorel, Combeferre, Jehan and Eponine were sat in the Musain (as ever) with a pile of papers and several laptops.

“How do I rebut the claim that the NHS as a free service is abused by members of the public?” asked Jehan, chewing his pencil.

“Tell them that the shitty nature of humanity is no reason to rob people of a basic human right enshrined in this country’s political system,” replied Eponine. Dangerous in a fist fight, and even more so in an argument, the physics student was something to be reckoned with. Even Enjolras was somewhat wary of her.

“Also there’s the fact that one of the very things that keeps this country afloat, maintains the quality of life of its people and renders us a developed country and hence world power, is our health service,” pointed out Bahorel.

Jehan nodded, and starting scribbling in his notebook. The points just made would now be translated into wonderful language that would reduce many a debater to tears.

The debate on Tuesday night was one part of the London further education league; they’d be competing against teams from Goldsmiths, Queen Mary and Westminster. It was a round robin at first; they’d compete against every possible permutation of team, before they got to the knockout rounds.

Because they would. They had last year, and their team was really quite something. A small part of the larger UCL debating club, the six of them were accomplished debaters that could destroy an opposing case with a mere handful of words. Enjolras had been known to reduce people to tears.

On Tuesday, it would be Enjolras and Bahorel taking the seats at the table, with the other four acting as floor debaters. The six of them would swap partners often; they knew each other’s debating styles, and could work well with any of their friends. Depending on the debate’s topic, they would switch up the teams.

In this case, the debate was highly politicised, and so Bahorel’s strong arguing style and Enjolras’ rhetoric were perfectly matched. If it had been a more moral debate, Combeferre would have stepped up.

(The third year in charge of the debating club still spoke of the time when Combeferre had managed to cause an opponent to have an epistemological crisis during a debate. The poor bloke had ended up sitting down and smashing his head into the table.)

 “Has someone got those stats of Joly’s?” asked the man himself, pushing his hair back off his forehead. To win points, the whole team had to contribute; those on the floor had to be as prepared as those at the table.

Courf passed the sheaf of notes over. “There’s a pretty good survey on the third page.”

Bahorel looked up from his laptop. “The one about GP opinions? Yeah, that’s mint.”

Combeferre nodded, turning to the third page and beginning to make notes. His painstakingly detailed notes were something of legend. Courfeyrac had spent much of their last four years of school trying to convince him to sell them at an inflated price.

Taking a slug of coffee, Enjolras flipped over a page of NHS economic statistics. Biro between his teeth, highlighting furiously, he probably looked quite scary.

Jehan, sat opposite him, would attest to this fact. Enjolras could be absolutely terrifying at times. At the moment, though, he merely looked faintly crazed. Which was probably a reflection of his mental state; Enjolras was inordinately competitive. It was probably quite worrying how hell-bent he was on succeeding.

It was going to make him a formidable force for change in the future, if he wasn’t already that, thought Jehan.

Either that, or he’d have a mental breakdown, a small part of him said sadly.

~#~

Enjolras walked out of the politics block, feeling, if you’d forgive the horrendously capitalist phrase, like a million dollars. Essay handed in, debate team ready, and an excellent training session the night before – everything was going well.

Or it was, until he crashed into someone as he walked across the quad.

“Jesus,” swore the person he’d impacted… and was now on the floor. Enjolras blinked. He knew that beanie.

“Grantaire?” God, he looked like shit. His eyes were bloodshot, with huge shadows under them. His hair definitely hadn’t been brushed, and his skin was pasty.

Hungover.

Enjolras fought not to curl his lip. Combeferre and Courfeyrac were rioting inside his skull.

Clearly it didn’t work, as Grantaire’s face fell. The artist shut his eyes. Of all the people. “Hello, Enjolras. Nice to bump into you too, although I might have preferred a less literal translation of that.”

Enjolras blinked again. Then, a phantom kick made itself known against his leg. He reached down a hand to help the artist up.

Grantaire stared at it for a second, brain going places that he didn’t really want to admit. Then common sense kicked in, and he took it, allowing the blond to pull him to his feet.

Bastard was strong, that was for sure.

“Sorry about that,” said Enjolras, looking at his booted feet.

“Eh, no blood, no foul.” Grantaire brushed his hands against the back of his jeans and jacket. “Just a dusty and bruised arse. Guess I won’t be bottoming for a while.”

Enjolras raised his eyebrows involuntarily.

“Jeez, lighten up, Blondie,” said Grantaire incredulously. “Really not in the mood for Princess Enjolras of Intense-and-Superior-To-You Land today.”

Enjolras’ eyebrows went even higher. “Did you just call me a princess?” he asked, somewhat too taken aback to be annoyed.

“Yes,” sighed Grantaire.

“I take it you haven’t had a chance to scan in the photos yet?” He eyed the drunk’s complexion.

Grantaire resisted the urge to roll his eyes. “No, not yet. I’ll send them to you by the end of the day, don’t worry. I’m not that hungover,” he added with real bite to his voice. Enjolras reeled slightly. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a lecture to get to.” The artist walked past Enjolras.

Once again demonstrating why he _really_ wasn’t good at relationships, Enjolras called after him. “Hey, you’re still coming on Saturday, right?”

Grantaire stopped, then turned around. “Yes, for the love of god, I’m coming to take the bloody photos. I’m hungover, not incapable.”

And with that, Enjolras was left standing in the middle of the quad, not sure if he was feeling more guilty or infuriated.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> shorter this time
> 
> sorry
> 
> hope you liked :)


	3. Handsome Devil

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grantaire and Enjolras discover that they're not really such nasty buggers after all. Drinking and debates happen. And what in the hell possessed Grantaire to go along to an ABC meeting?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, I know, it's been ages. I'm sorry.
> 
> This chapter is a flipping monster. It's taken me most of this week to wrestle it into birthing position. I have a feeling it's not my best work, but it's all important stuff and in the end I couldn't do anything more to it.
> 
> Hope you like.

To the considerable surprise of Enjolras, at four o'clock an email with a large attachment pinged into his inbox.  
  
 _To:_[ _raiseaflag@gmail.com_](mailto:raiseaflag@gmail.com) __  
From:[ _moritamusbibant@gmail.com_](mailto:moritamusbibant@gmail.com) __  
Subject: photos  
Attachments: rowingphotos.zip  
  
As promised.  
  
Grantaire  
  
"Moritamus bibant?" Enjolras said incredulously. _Those about to die drink._ That was more than a little morbid.  
  
Though, it did seem to fit with the artist's drinking habits.  
  
He clicked on the attachment. Once again he was knocked by the quality of the photos. They really were something else.  
  
He looked at one which had caught him at the furthest extent of his stroke. It was, he had to say, a good photo of him.  
  
Enjolras knew he was good-looking. He'd been told it often enough. Most of the time he tried to ignore this fact; while image was certainly important to any political statement, he hated the possibility that people listened to him simply because he was pretty.  
  
But Enjolras was only human, and so, for a moment, he let his vanity consider making the photo his profile picture on facebook, before shaking his head and closing the image.  
  
He typed out a quick thank you.  
  
 _Grantaire,_  
  
The pictures really are (here he struggled for a word that captured his feelings about the photos) _fantastic. Thank you for taking them and expending time on the scanning._  
  
He paused, fingers hovering over the keyboard. Should he apologise for earlier? How on earth would he do that without making it horrendously awkward?  
  
Besides, Grantaire had been pretty obstreperous.  
  
A voice that sounded distinctly like Combeferre and Courfeyrac had gotten inside his head pointed out that he'd probably only been so after Enjolras' own treatment of him.  
  
Unable to properly justify an apology, let alone formulate one, Enjolras simply went for something that he hoped would smooth the rough edges of their interactions in the last few days. He didn't actively dislike the artist, and he needed him to be favourable to working.  
 __  
I hope your hangover gets better, and sorry for knocking you over.  
  
Thanks again,  
  
Enjolras  
  
He stared at the screen for a while, once again feeling that weird mix of guilt and irritation, before clicking send.  
  
~#~  
  
As an apology to Cosette for his behaviour the night before, Grantaire was using his early Friday evening to make a really good dinner. Cosette was at an impromptu choir rehearsal, which gave him the time to perfect his risotto, as well as putting the brownies in to bake.  
  
Grantaire knew he drank too much. He'd known that from the age of fifteen. But somehow, he couldn't force himself to care. The only times he felt actually bad about it were when his friends ended up worrying about him, or when he did something really stupid.  
  
This time fell into a mixture of both categories, resulting in Grantaire feeling pretty crap about himself on top of the hangover and pain of sleeping at his desk.  
  
And then he'd had a bloody run in with Blondie the Beautiful. Of all the people. He wondered how much more disgust would have been laden upon him if Enjolras had known that he had been the cause of Grantaire's hangover.  
  
Admittedly, he had been pretty rude to the bloke, but then again, he seemed to lack some pretty crucial social skills. Like tact. And timing.  
  
It didn't help, of course, that Blondie was the single most attractive person that Grantaire had ever encountered. Or that he was itching to paint him, draw him, fucking sculpt him in play dough.  
  
Rubbing his forehead, Grantaire turned back to his risotto. Cooking would make him feel better. It usually did.  
  
He'd had to learn to cook at quite a young age, after learning that noone else was going to do it for him. And despite his slim frame, Grantaire liked to eat. A lot. So he learned to cook, for he was nothing if not a survivor.  
  
And so it was that Grantaire, at the age of nineteen, could very easily hold a dinner party. The one rather large flaw in this plan was that Grantaire had no desire to hold a dinner party. His kind of party tended to involve less food, more alcohol and tables for dancing, not dining.  
  
But there would be no drinking tonight. For Cosette's sake.  
  
And also because she wouldn't let him go out on Saturday without a fight if he spent tonight with a bottle. So, you know, it suited everyone.

~#~

Friday evening for Enjolras was something rather different. After having tapped out an incredibly angry, but beautifully worded blogpost about attitudes to the trans community, he had essentially inhaled a bowl of soup before shoving a stack of notes into his bag and donning his coat.

The Tube was crowded with people heading out for a night of revelry. One girl dolled up to the nines smiled invitingly at him from the seat opposite him.

Freezing for a second, he turned his attention to the newspaper. He prayed that the telltale blush that normally gave his discomfort away wasn’t making an appearance.

Thankfully, the girl had gotten off by the time they reached Liverpool Street.

The streets of Shoreditch were filled with people, slowing his progress to the Musain. He tried not to tut when he was held up by the third pedestrian crossing, but he had an activist meeting to get to.

Enjolras truly believed he could change the world. Maybe not single-handedly, but he thought he could make a difference; no, more than that, he knew it. He might be a student a couple of months short of twenty, but he knew he could change things. So much needed to be done in the world; why on earth shouldn’t he be one of the people to effect it?

He was aware that it would be an uphill struggle. Probably worse than that. But then again, he’d struggled through plenty of things himself before – as had the rest of them – and he’d continue to face adversity with his trademark tenacity and determination. He’d continue until he could do no more.

That was what he was good for. Nothing more, nothing less. He would spend his life trying to better the world, or die trying.

However, that death really shouldn’t come as the result of a misjudged road crossing, so he remained where he was until the little green man appeared.

The Musain was crowded, but as he made his way across the room, he caught Madame Huchloup’s eye and she nodded. Smiling gratefully, he headed for the stairs.

The Musain was an odd little establishment, but it was home to him and his friends. And its handy little ‘back room’ was an asset to a political group who couldn’t really go around shouting about their protest plans.

Luckily, Huchloup had taken to their little group, and let them use her back room exclusively on meeting nights.

Three of the group were already there; Combeferre, nose deep in a copy of the Guardian, Joly, and Bossuet, who was having his hand tended to by his boyfriend/life partner/warden.

Enjolras bit back a smile as he watched Joly fuss over a rather sizeable cut. God alone knew how Bossuet – no, wait, that was definitely a smashed glass on the floor by their table. He shook his head affectionately, before raising a hand to the pair of them. Both waved back amiably. Bossuet waved so enthusiastically that he nearly fell out of his chair.

“Evening,” Combeferre greeted his roommate without looking up from his paper as Enjolras sat down at the same table.

“Manage to find that book of yours?” Enjolras asked, snaking out a hand to steal a biscuit from the saucer on the table. Combeferre half-heartedly smacked at it.

“I had to put it on order; the last idiot to take it out hasn’t bloody brought it back.”

“Wanker.”

Combeferre smiled faintly at his best friend’s show of solidarity.

Then the door creaked open, and around a dozen people streamed in. “And so it begins,” said the taller man. “Hadn’t you better get your speech ready?”

Enjolras snorted. “Speech? I don’t need a speech. I’m only talking about that bullshit NHS law, why would I need a speech?”

“Watch it, ‘Jolras. One of these days your head is going to inflate so far that you won’t be able to hold it up.”

Enjolras stuck his tongue out at Combeferre, before heading over to the influx of people. ‘Ferre watched as his best friend walked around the tables, shaking hands and welcoming new-comers. For all he struggled with acting like a normal human being, Enjolras was a force of nature when it came to politics. People came to one Friday meeting on a whim, saw Enjolras speaking, and found themselves coming back every week. Doubtless, the rest of ABC’s core was a draw, not to mention the issues the group tried to address in their numerous protests, petitions and rallies, but a lot of credit for the support for ABC had to be given to Enjolras.

Courf came in at around twenty to eight, plopping down next to his best friend. By this point, there was quite a crowd of people in the room. “Enjy charming the troops?”

“As ever,” replied Combeferre, taking a sip of tea.

“We should just put his face on the leaflets,” Courf suggested, reaching over to steal a biscuit. “We’d definitely up attendance that way.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s some kind of prostitution.”

Courf rolled his eyes, speaking through a mouthful of crumbs. “You mean, Enjy would call it that.”

“Who am I to argue with the gospel?” asked Combeferre, holding his hands up. There was a moment of silence, then the pair of them were laughing.

~#~

Leaning against the wall on the tube back, Enjolras considered. “We need to get more people on board for this rally.”

Combeferre nodded. “Quite. At present it’s just going to be us and a few anti-government malcontents – “

“I’m pretty sure that’s what we’re classed as,” pointed out the blond.

His friend eyed him. “No, Enjolras, that’s what _you’re_ classed as. The rest of us are peaceful protestors.”

“When have I ever advocated violence?” demanded Enjolras, somewhat insulted.

“Anyone who went through as loud and angry a teenage anarchist phase as you did has a lot of grounds to be called a malcontent.”

“Point.”

~#~

This was fucking unbearable.

Not the terrible weather – although that was certainly a factor – or the assignment (because Grantaire _liked_ taking photos), but fucking _Enjolras_.

Fucking beautiful, arsehole Enjolras.

Well, perhaps the second bit wasn’t quite so warranted. He’d been downright amiable when Grantaire had turned up, ten minutes early, introducing him to the Boat Club captain (a massive bloke called Claquesous who he _really_ wouldn’t want to meet in a dark alley) who’d crushed his fingers with a formidable handshake.

Yeah, he had been friendly.

Grantaire had gotten off the bus and walked across Putney Bridge, noting the ice coating the edge of the puddles, before making his way down the towpath. The Thames was a dark brown today, and he had sworn to god that was a Doc Marten floating along the bank.

He’d made sure he’d be early; once again, he had a point to make to Blondie. God alone knew why it bothered him so much – for, normally, he didn’t give a toss about what most people thought of him. The small exception to that was his friends, and, apparently, Enjolras. Because they weren’t friends, not really. They might share a social group, but they weren’t friends.

Enjolras had been outside the boat house, clad in neoprene leggings, wellies and a slim-fitting red hoodie emblazoned with the word ‘HENLEY’ in large black capitals. He’d pushed his hair off his forehead with a sweatband, and the effect was to make him look something like Bjorn Borg, but more gorgeous.

The rower had shoved his phone into his pocket, looking slightly surprised, before walking over to him. “Hello, Grantaire.”

“Enjolras.”

“How are you?” the blond had asked, and the question sounded – bizarrely – friendly, as opposed to a mere formality.

Grantaire shrugged. “Eh, alright. Yourself?”

“Not too bad, thanks.” He gestured to the boat house stairs. “Do you want a hot drink or something? It’s going to get bloody cold by the end of the session, you might need it.”

Somewhat taken aback, Grantaire found himself nodding. “Sure, that would be… good.”

The upper floor of the boathouse held a wood-panelled room with a bar, plus doors that led into what Grantaire assumed were changing rooms, and a tiny kitchen. Enjolras had strode purposefully across the room, rubber boots clacking against the flooring as he stepped over a couple of rowers who were contorting themselves into horribly painful looking stretches.

There was no way that Grantaire had ogled his neoprene-clad arse as it went ahead of him. No way.

“So, we’ve got coffee, tea, Bovril, some decidedly dodgy mint hot chocolate that Courf bought, and hi-carb lemon drink. Oh, and Vimto.” Enjolras had looked expectantly at him.

“Oh… coffee, cheers.”

Enjolras had nodded, before setting to work. “Thank you again for coming, by the way. It’s a grim day.”

“Must be worse if you’re in the boat,” Grantaire had pointed out. “Don’t you get soaked?”

The blond had looked over his shoulder from the kettle he was filling. “Depends, really. If it’s not too choppy, and everyone’s in sync and feathering properly –“ Grantaire had raised his eyebrows. “Sliding their oars over the water flat.”

“Oh.”

“- then it’s not too bad. You do get a bit wet, but I guess I’m used to it by now.” He had turned back to the kettle, flipping the lid shut and placing it on the heater.

“Fair enough. Have you ever fallen in?”

Enjolras had surprised him by laughing loudly, a full-throated cry of mirth. “Plenty of times. I learnt to row on this stretch of river, and I’ve swum in it more times than I care to mention.”

“Christ, can’t imagine that’s pleasant.”

“The worst thing,” the would-be barista had replied, “is the aftermath.” The kettle had dinged, and he began pouring steaming water into two large polystyrene cups. “Getting the 93 back to Wimbledon in wet underwear and a thin school uniform really is not a pleasant experience.”

The candidness of this confession from the bloke who seemed to have a stick inserted deeply up a certain part of his anatomy had made Grantaire laugh so loudly Enjolras looked around. “Sorry. It was a funny image.” The idea of a teenage Enjolras sitting dripping on a bus in wet pants, hair probably turning into a dandelion head as it dried, really had made his day.

Enjolras had tipped his head to one side. “I guess so, yes.” And then he’d smiled.

Jesus Christ, what was going on? Why was he suddenly being so nice to him? Why? Where the hell was this going?

And why the _hell_ did the guy have to look so fucking beautiful when he smiled? _Why_?

Grantaire was now sat on the top of the slipway nursing the same polystyrene cup of coffee as he moodily watched Enjolras jogging towards the boathouse with Combeferre. Even just warming up, the extension of his limbs was like something from a painting. The two men came to a halt, then began stretching.

Grantaire definitely did not watch the muscles moving in Enjolras’ limbs as he pressed a hand down on one bent leg, extending the other in front of him. Nor did he gaze at his blond curls, longing in equal measures for a paintbrush to capture them or to be able to touch them. Nope. Definitely none of that here.

Things did not improve. It was one thing to still be pissed off with someone for knocking you over, assuming you were talentless and judging you, despite never really having spoken to you. It was quite another to find yourself nursing a semi for that person because of how fucking gorgeous they were.

And it was bloody hard trying to hide a boner when you were wearing a leather jacket and trying to take pictures. He was going to have to wear his parka more often if he was going to keep coming into contact with Enjolras.

The launch turned up for him half an hour into the practice, this time only with Bahorel in it. Jehan was coxing for a girl’s eight who, he had to say, looked absolutely fucking terrifying as they powered down the river.

“Enjolras is bloody impressed with those photos of yours,” said the economics student as he pulled the launch past Fulham football stadium.

“Big of him,” muttered Grantaire, peering through his viewfinder.

“He was a bit of a wanker, I know,” said Bahorel thoughtfully. “But that’s just how he is sometimes.”

“ _That_ being his total lack of any social skills?” He snapped a photograph of the girls’ eight just as Jehan started yelling obscenities and brandishing his fists in the air at an Imperial boat cutting into their path. The flowers in his reddish mop of hair only added to the picture.

“As Enjolras’ mate, I probably should disagree with you. Then again, I’ve known the bloke for over a year now and there’s a lot of truth in your statement.”

Grantaire made an angry little noise in his throat, taking another picture. “I just don’t appreciate being judged unfairly.” Bahorel knew that the second part of that statement, which Grantaire hadn’t voiced, was that one of the only things that the cynic cared about was his art. And insulting his capabilities in that direction without any real proof was downright cruel.

“Well, he seems to have realised that he was being a tosser,” said the big man lightly. “He really was raving about the photos. That’s why you’re here again.”

Grantaire tried to swallow the bubble of annoyance that he felt about being at the whims of UCL’s very own bloody Pre-Raph beauty. He also didn’t voice how much he disliked Enjolras’ disdain for him as a person.

Sure, Blondie might have been nicer to him today, and - maybe – accepted that he was a decent artist, but that didn’t excuse his attitude.

Grantaire wondered whether or not the fact that he had suddenly realised just how gorgeous Enjolras was was contributing to his lingering annoyance towards the rower.

After two hours, the practice – the first session, as Bahorel explained – ended. Forty rowers piled back into the boathouse, decorated in varying volumes of river water and rain. Bahorel and Grantaire took a seat on the first floor balcony, sheltered from the rain by the roof.

Feuilly, hair dripping, clapped Grantaire on the shoulder as he came past. “Alright, mate?”

“Mildly astounded by your rowing skills, once again.”

The ginger giant grinned. “Come with us to the Head next month. Then you’ll see the mad skills.” He patted Grantaire’s shoulder again, then ducked into the boathouse.

Courf, left side covered in what looked like waterweed, was next up. Despite his green entanglement, he was still cheerful. It was an immense part of his charm, Grantaire thought to himself.

“What in god’s name happened to you?” asked Bahorel, reaching out as if to touch the plant, then thinking better of it.

“Feuilly was a little energetic when we were turning earlier. No idea what this stuff is.” He turned his head to the side, sniffing at his shoulder. The Irishman’s face lost all its colour. “And you know, I don’t think I want to. Toodles.” Looking almost as green as the unidentified plant, he beat a hasty path to the changing rooms.

Grantaire and Bahorel were still laughing when Combeferre and Enjolras came up the stairs. The taller man looked impeccable, if rather damp, but Enjolras’ wet curls had escaped their band and were falling in his face as he talked to his friend.

He looked like a fucking Botticelli angel and it wasn’t fucking fair.

“Hello Grantaire,” said Combeferre amiably. “How are you?”

“Not too bad, cheers. You?”

The philosopher smiled. “Not bad.”

“How is the photography going?” Oh, joy, Michaelangelo’s David had decided to pester him. He shrugged. “Yeah, good, I think. Can’t be sure until I’ve actually developed the photos, but yeah.” He fixed his eyes on the scuffed toecaps of his Converses and tried to think of dead puppies.

“Excellent. Thanks again for coming out in the rain.”

Grantaire chanced a look up. “No problem.”

Enjolras smiled (what the fuck was happening here). “Alright, ‘Ferre, let’s go see if Courf’s done battling the creature from the deep yet.”

Combeferre laughed. “See you Grantaire, Bahorel.”

Bahorel raised a hand, and Grantaire nodded, feeling a little dazed.

The door swung shut beside them, and then he turned on his large friend. “Okay, seriously, has that guy got multiple personality disorder or something? He’s a completely different bloke!”

Bahorel laughed. “Nah, he’s not. You just caught him at his worst the last few days.”

“I’ll say,” muttered Grantaire.

“He’s had a lot on the last week or two, and it makes him a bit loopier than normal when he gets stressed,” the rugby player said succinctly. “He’s a bit stunted socially at times, but really, he’s a genuinely decent bloke.”

Grantaire considered this. He supposed it was plausible. The best of people got ratty when they were stressed; even Jehan – sweet natured, kind Jehan, who sang to the flowers and hugged hedgehogs – had been known to start snapping at people when deadlines drew too close for comfort.

There was still the issue that Enjolras had never really bothered speaking to him for most of first year, and was still, in his mind, a dismissive prick, but he could let things lie. The guy had been genuinely nice to him today. And it was far easier to have a boner for him without all the conflicted feelings.

“Alright then.”

Grantaire cast a look back inside the boathouse. Numerous rowers in varying states of sprawl were eating food at speeds previously undocumented by the human eye.

“Jesus Christ,” he swore, half in admiration. He looked back to Bahorel, who laughed. “Christ, Courf really _does_ have an excuse for the amount he eats, doesn’t he?”

“Sadly so. He may have picked the best sport for being a greedy sod.”

Grantaire laughed, turning around again to see Courf apparently swallow a sandwich whole. “God, that is disgusting.”

“You should see them at a race. Lesser men have vomited at the sight.”

He grimaced, trying not to think too hard about that. “Why’d you get saddled with this job, anyway?”

Bahorel shrugged. “They needed another couple of coaches with experience, and I needed to branch out a bit from rugby, so it seemed logical. And, y’know, it’s my mates I’m training, so it’s all fun.”

“Watch out, mate,” said Grantaire, mock-seriously, “that sounded dangerously close to sentiment.”

There was a moment of silence, then Bahorel tackled him to the floor.

~#~

“You seem to have perked up,” said Feuilly to Enjolras as the blond towelled his hair dry in front of the bathroom mirror. “You’ve been a right mardy arse all week.”

Enjolras rolled his eyes, lightly shoving the Scot’s arm. Feuilly grinned. “Nah, seriously, I’m glad you’ve cheered up, I thought I was gonna have to force-feed you Irn Bru to perk you up a wee bit.”

The shorter man blanched. “Oh god, anything but that.”

“Irn Bru is the drink of kings,” said Feuilly obstinately, folding his arms.

Combeferre looked up from where he was pulling his jeans up. “Feuilly, that really is not the way to recommend something to Enjolras.”

“You’d have been better off saying ‘the drink of handsome, noble revolutionaries in tight trousers’,” put in Courf, leaning his head around a shower cubicle, clad in nothing but a towel. Enjolras threw a waterbottle at his head.

However, Enjolras’ lack of aim was something quite legendary, and so the Irishman was easily able to dodge the projectile.

“You call that a throw?” exclaimed Courf, popping up again. “My great aunt throws better than you.”

“That’s because your great aunt runs a cattle farm in County Tyrone and drinks a pint of Guinness every day for breakfast,” pointed out Combeferre, while Enjolras gave Courf the finger.

“Sounds like my kind of woman,” said Feuilly, absentmindedly.

Courf reappeared, still only in his towel. “Hey, stay away from me fecking aunt!”

Feuilly put his hands up. “I’m not going anywhere near your bloody aunt, ya bampot!”

“Christ, it’s like the regional accent showdown in here,” muttered Enjolras, pulling his tee shirt over his head.

“We just need Bahorel yelling about going to the foot of his stairs,” replied Combeferre, buttoning his shirt.

Courf and Feuilly were still throwing incomprehensible Celtic insults at one another, the former _still_ only in his towel, the latter in just his jeans and holey socks. It was a faintly ridiculous sight, the short man squared up to the lanky ginger giant.

“You guys are stereotypes,” said Combeferre, sighing.

“And what?” both students demanded simultaneously, putting their hands on their hips. Feuilly’s wardrobe choice could sustain this action.

Courf’s, however, could not, and he was left standing in the middle of the bathroom, hands on hips, with a towel pooled around his feet.

Sometimes Enjolras truly did wonder about what his life was becoming.

However, this musing was cut short by Jehan walking into the bathroom with his hairbrush. Upon seeing Courfeyrac in all his glory – still holding that ridiculous pose – the tiny poet squeaked. Courf froze, the expression upon his face something Enjolras would truly never forget.

A long beat passed.

Then Jehan ran out of the bathroom at the same second as Courf dived for the safety of his shower cubicle.

Combeferre turned to Enjolras, a long-suffering look upon his face. “ _When_ are those two going to get their shit together?”

“I have no idea, but I hope for my sanity’s sake it’s soon.”

~#~

Now bundled up in coats, scarves (and, in Jehan’s case, a knitted monstrosity that purported to be a snood), the four rowers and the cox walked down the stairs to the towpath.

“Christ, I need a drink,” muttered Combeferre..

“Join the club,” said Courfeyrac, rather dolefully.

Feuilly patted the shorter man’s shoulder, their earlier standoff completely forgotten. Courf leaned into the touch, eyes still fixed on Jehan as he walked a few steps ahead with Enjolras.

“Did I hear someone say ‘drink’?” Bahorel asked, standing on the towpath with Grantaire at his side. The latter grinned.

“My saviour,” moaned Courf, throwing himself at their feet. “Take me to the pub, gentlemen, and buy me the most fluorescent thing you can find,” he whimpered, flinging an arm across his eyes.

“I told you he should have done a drama degree,” muttered Enjolras to Combeferre, who laughed. Bahorel, meanwhile, had taken Courf’s arms and hauled him to his feet.

“If you guys want to come with us, we’re heading to the Corinthe,” said the big man. “Right, R?”

Combeferre watched Grantaire prise his eyes away from Enjolras and then nod. Interesting.

“Yeah, sure. It’ll be a laugh.”

Combeferre turned to Enjolras, read the acquiescence in his eyes, and replied, “Sure. We just need to drop our stuff home; we’ll meet you there?”

“I swear to god, it gives me the creeps every time you guys do that,” said Feuilly, backing away.

“Do what?” Combeferre asked innocently.

“When you start reading each other’s minds. And, worse, when –“

“We finish-“

“Each other’s sentences?” finished Enjolras, grinning.

“Right, we’ve established you’re a pair of freaks,” cut in Bahorel, “Can we get going to the Corinthe?”

Grantaire spent a good deal of the tube journey to Embankment covertly watching Enjolras, trying to memorise how he looked as he sat next to Feuilly and Combeferre, talking animatedly about something or other. He was going to draw the shit out of that when he next got a chance.

However, after they changed onto the Northern line, Courf seized his attention. The Irishman seemed jumpy, one leg bouncing up and down as he sat opposite from Grantaire, eyes apparently fixed on Bahorel’s shoes.

“You alright, Courf? You look like you’ve been snorting sherbert-”

“Not again,” groaned Combeferre from the other side of Grantaire, who turned to face him, disbelief clear on his face.

“THAT WAS ONE TIME,” yelled Courf, entirely too loud for a busy tube train. A couple of Japanese tourists looked at one another, fingering their cameras excitedly.

“What the fuck? You actually snorted sherbert?”

“It was a bet!”

“ _That’s what you always say_ ,” sighed Enjolras and Combeferre in unison, the former without looking up from his iPhone. Feuilly was right, Grantaire realised. It was fucking creepy how they did that.

“I swear to god, if you don’t stop taking stupid bets, I will not be responsible for the damage I cause you, Courfeyrac,” threatened Combeferre.

“I shouldn’t worry about that,” commented Enjolras, eyes still locked on his phone as he stood with one hand holding a ceiling strap. “I daresay he’ll cause enough damage to himself one of these days that you won’t have to bother.”

Courfeyrac pouted. “I hate you both.”

“No you don’t,” they replied in unison.

Grantaire shook his head, faintly marvelling. He looked over to the other end of the carriage where Feuilly and Jehan had nabbed a couple of seats. That had been slightly odd, he realised belatedly, how Feuilly had dashed off with Jehan. He managed to catch his best friend’s eye, raising his eyebrows expressively.

“ _Later_ ,” mouthed the tiny poet back, then returned to chatting with Feuilly.

Weird.

At Warren Street, Enjolras and Combeferre bid their goodbyes to the other five, who were apparently going via Courf’s flat, as he lived about fifty paces from the Corinthe’s front door.

“You seem to be in a good mood,” commented the taller man as they walked up to their flat.

“I thought the rule was never to acknowledge my moods, in the hope that they might disappear if unmentioned?”

“Sadly, life has killed the dream I dreamed,” replied Combeferre, unlocking the front door.

Laughing, Enjolras shoved his best friend into the flat.

~#~

After a hurried dumping of bags at Courf’s flat, the five students headed towards the Corinthe.

The Corinthe was a bar that sat right by the canal, with a terrace that looked over the market on one side and the water on another. It was cheap, friendly and faintly disreputable, all of which combined to make it a haunt for their group. If the Musain was a home, this was where they could happily be scraped off the floor after a messy night out.

Or something like that.

Drinks purchased, the five students headed up to the terrace without question. Courf, Jehan and Bahorel plunked into seats around a space heater, while Feuilly and Grantaire stood by the edge, cigarettes in hand.

“I’m going to give Marius, Joly and Bossuet a ring,” said Courf. “Might as well have everyone here.” He got to his feet, making for the other (deserted) end of the terrace.

Jehan let out a barely perceptible sigh of relief as the Irishman walked off. Grantaire raised an eyebrow, but the poet just shook his head.

Somewhat concerned, Grantaire nonetheless turned back to Feuilly, taking a pull from his cigarette. “D’you get your coursework back?” asked the Scot.

“Nah, not yet. Think I’m meant to on Tuesday or something. You?”

Feuilly nodded. “Yeah, I did.”

“And??”

The ginger giant grinned. “Full marks, my friend.”

“For that, I’m buying you another pint as soon as you’ve finished that one. Nice one, mate.”  

“They’ll be here in half an hour,” called Courf, walking back over to the space heater.

“Who will?” asked Enjolras, coming out onto the terrace with Combeferre, both of them holding pints. Grantaire tried to ignore his stomach flipping as he saw the Grimbergen glass in Enjolras’ long-fingered hand.

“Joly, Bossuet and Pontmercy. Figured we might as well have the whole troupe.”

“What are we, ballet dancers?” demanded Bahorel. Feuilly spluttered. The bigger man looked around sharply. “Sorry,” the Scot said, “I had a sudden flash of you in tights and a tutu.”

There was a moment of silence.

“I’m never going to be able to unsee that,” Courf whispered, horrified. Bahorel smacked him across the back of the head.

Trying to ignore the beautiful man now sat next to Courf, Grantaire turned back to Feuilly. “How’s work?”

“Fucking awful. My manager is a bloody tosser.”

“Well, you know the cure for that?” Feuilly nodded, grinning. Both students put down their pints, raised their hands to their mouths, and hollered “WANKER!” as loud as they could.

A roosting pigeon took flight, terrified, while Bahorel and Courf fell about laughing. Combeferre chuckled into his pint.

Enjolras eyed the two leaning against the railing. “Is this a common habit of yours?”

Jehan rolled his eyes. “There’s a reason half of Tooting thought you had Tourettes, R.”

Grantaire grinned. “Jehan, you and I both know that the pair of us have shouted profanities about several of your ex boyfriends from the top of Hampstead Heath.”

“That’s not the only thing you’ve done on Hampstead Heath,” replied Jehan saucily, causing Enjolras to splutter into his pint, going scarlet.

Grantaire stuck out his tongue at his best friend. “Pot, meet kettle.” This time it was Feuilly who half inhaled beer.

“God help me,” muttered Combeferre. “I’m friends with a bunch of gay exhibitionists.”

“I’m not gay, I’m bi,” retorted Grantaire haughtily. “The rest of your statement, however, is perfectly correct.”

Enjolras stared down into his drink. He really wasn’t up for a discussion of this sort. It… freaked him out, if he was honest.

Luckily, he was saved by the amazing Pontmercy. Marius turned up, tripped over, and fell into a seat, true to form, before realising he didn’t have a drink and having to get up all over again.

“That boy has no brain,” said Combeferre after a moment, not unkindly.

“You’d be surprised, actually,” said Courf. “He taught himself to speak French completely on his own when he was about fourteen. He’s a beast at languages.”

There was a moment of silence.

“Idiot savant?” asked Feuilly.

“It’s a possibility.” There was a small crash from the main bar. The seven students looked around. Marius had collided with someone carrying a box of empty bottles.

“A very definite possibility,” muttered Enjolras.

~#~

Grantaire leant against the railing, taking a deep breath as he looked out over the canal, second pint now in hand.

“Inhaling the delightful scent of Eau de Scene Kid?” enquired Feuilly, who got a shove for his trouble.

“Shut up, Ginge. I like Camden.” Indeed he did; Grantaire had spent as much time as possible there since discovering the place at age thirteen. “It appeals to my emo days.”

“You had an emo phase?” asked Bahorel, laughing.

“Oh, he did,” said Jehan with relish. “We had to practically cut him out of his skinny jeans and MCR tee shirt. And then there was the eyeliner, and the earring…” he reminisced fondly, before taking a sip of his drink.

“Enj pierced his ear too, when he had his super rebellious phase,” said Courf. “His mum nearly had a heart attack.” He elbowed the man in question. “D’you remember?”

“I hardly think I would forget my mother fainting upon the sight of me.”

Grantaire knew how the woman felt.

“So what happened to the piercing?” Jehan asked Enjolras curiously, who sighed, then lifted up his hair on one side. Sure enough, a small stud flashed in the light, as well as a ring in the blond’s helix. Now, that he hadn’t expected. The bloke had always seemed a little… straitlaced to Grantaire, what with the not really drinking and the dismissiveness.

“Nice,” he commented, pushing back his own messy curls to show the stud in his lobe. The corner of Enjolras’ mouth lifted, just slightly.

“Awww, little emo friends,” chirped Bahorel in a scarily high pitched voice.

“Hey, Enjy wasn’t an emo. He was a goth. Or a punk. Or some unholy combination of the two,” said Courf thoughtfully, with more condescension than a man drinking a blue WKD should really be allowed.

“He was a sight.” Enjolras made a childish face at Combeferre. “Thanks, _mother_. Do I need to remind you of the summer you wore nothing but those godawful three quarter length cargo shorts?”

Combeferre flushed slightly. “Now now, not in front of the children.”

Victorious, Enjolras took a sip of his drink.

~#~

By the time Joly and Bossuet turned up, nearly an hour later than they’d promised (for reasons no one wanted to know), Saturday night had become a proper night out.

Someone – and no one seemed to know who, though Grantaire suspected Bahorel had a hand in it – had procured an unholy quantity of tequila slammers, which never was a good idea when this lot were concerned. Marius (Two Pintmercy, as he was known) was already giggly after his single Strongbow, while Feuilly and Grantaire had already raced each other to finish at least two pints.

“C’mon, who’s going first?” asked Courf, holding a salt shaker in his hand and shaking it ominously. There was a small pause. This couldn’t end well.

And then, unexpectedly, Combeferre leaned forward. “Oh, what the hell.”

The tall student shook salt onto his hand, downed the shot and quickly took the lime slice Bahorel passed him.

And that was sort of it, for Enjolras. Because if ‘Ferre was going to let his hair down, he might as well too. He deserved it after this week.

“Who’s next?” grinned Courf, only to gasp dramatically when Enjolras held out his hand.

He quickly mimicked Combeferre’s actions, trying to ignore the burn of the tequila as it shot down his throat. “God, that’s awful.”

“You don’t drink it for the taste, mate,” said Bahorel, who swiftly downed his own shot.

This couldn’t be a good idea.

~#~

Several drinks in, Jehan caught Grantaire’s sleeve. “Can we have a chat?” he practically squeaked. Grantaire took one look at his best friend’s pained face and picked up his drink, before letting the smaller man pull him over to a corner.

“I saw Courf naked!” he practically wailed once they were out of earshot.

Grantaire choked on his Jack and coke. “Jesus Christ, Jehan!” he spluttered. “Way to tell me you finally had sex with him!”

Jehan shook his head vehemently, then hiccuped. “No, you don’t understand. I saw him naked, R.”

Oh boy. “What, just randomly?”

The poet nodded disconsolately. “I went into the bathroom in the changing rooms and he was just standing there and he sort of yelped and I was so shocked that I just bloody ran for it and I’ve blown it now haven’t I?” he said all in one rush.

“Don’t be daft. Of course you haven’t. I think anyone would ‘yelp’ if they got caught naked.” He paused, some form of meaning passing through his slightly drunk brain. “Wait, why was he naked… actually, you know what, I’m not even gonna ask. This is Courf we’re talking about.” The Irishman’s disregard for clothing was something you just had to get used to. “Anyway, calm. I would scream if, say… Enjolras walked in on me.” Damn, Freud was having a field day.

But Jehan wasn’t convinced. “He will never love me, R. He was clearly horrified by my profane eyes upon his glorious form.”

“Oh, god,” muttered Grantaire, before raising his voice. “No, don’t be stupid.”

“And then I ran away,” howled Jehan, so loud that a couple of girls looked over. Grantaire tried to give them a reassuring smile, but judging by the look on their faces, it hadn’t really worked. He probably just looked like a leering letch. Jeez, he couldn’t catch a break. Or reign in his inner monologue, apparently. “He will think I don’t love his beautiful body, that I don’t want his lovely di-“

Grantaire shuddered. He really wasn’t up for a chat about one of his best friend’s anatomies. “Jehan, stop it. I’m pretty sure he knows you want… him.”

The tiny student wasn’t deterred, though. “I will never get to love his dick, Grantaire. I will never get to write poetry on his body, I will never get to write poetry for him as my own.” He paused for a second, swaying. “I will never get to love his dick,” he finished in a small voice.

“Yes, you will,” he argued back, faintly desperate. “I’m sure you’ll get to love his dick!”

The last bit came out a bit loud, judging by the looks the same girls shot him. Jesus, he really was not up for this.

“No I won’t,” wailed Jehan. “He can never love me like I love him, R! It’s not fair!”

“Alright, sunshine,” Grantaire took hold of his best friend and began dragging him towards the bar. “I think you need a drink.” He ran a hand through his hair. “God knows I do after that.”

~#~

Somehow, they’d gotten onto a discussion about music, by way of a conversation about ‘that guy that died from wanking too many times’. Noone wanted to know how Courf knew about that one.

“The Mercury list was a load of bullshit,” said Enjolras. “Bloody obvious choices, absolutely no exploration or innovation.”

“No metal, either.”

“Shut up, Bahorel,” said Feuilly absentmindedly, getting a smack to the back of his head for his trouble.

“I totally agree,” said Grantaire. “You can sum that list up in the fact that bloody Jake Bugg is on there.”

“What is your problem with Jake Bugg?” demanded Courf.

“Jake Bugg is a force for evil,” said Grantaire, shaking his head ominously. “Evil, I tell you.”

“What would you have put on the list, then?” asked Combeferre, taking a pull of beer.

“Oh god, I don’t know. I really liked the Biffy one, and Disclosure’s…”

“Someone say Biffy?” asked Feuilly, grinning.

Joly rolled his eyes. “You perpetuate all the stereotypes that you complain about, Feuilly.”

“Opposites _was_ a banger of an album,” pointed out Bossuet. “Weird, but good.”

“I just liked the bagpipes,” said Marius. Bossuet patted his head fondly.

Combeferre said thoughtfully, “Holy Fire, definitely.” Joly nodded. “And Dry the River’s was brilliant.”

“I liked the Kodaline one,” said Courf.

“That’s because you’re Irish.”

“Feck off, Bahorel.”

“I know it doesn’t count ‘cause it’s American, but Imagine Dragons’ album is class,” added Feuilly.

“Everything Everything’s new one,” suggested Joly, who’d never left the 2009 indie bubble. “Oh god, no,” blanched Enjolras. “Man Alive was far better.”

“Save Rock and Roll,” suggested Grantaire suddenly.

“Yes!”  yelled Bossuet passionately. “Believers never die!” He bumped fists with the artist, then nearly toppled out of his chair. Joly tutted affectionately, pulling him back upright with slightly more wandering hands than might have been necessary.

“Oh! That Frank Turner one,” said Jehan.

Enjolras pointed at Jehan. “I completely agree.”

“Tape Deck Heart is great, man,” Grantaire said, gesturing with a mostly empty pint glass.

“Fuck off,” said Bahorel, “Tape Deck Heart is fucking shite. It’s a load of crap about relationships.”

Enjolras fixed the taller man with a relatively steady glare. “Bahorel, you are a dear friend of mine. But if you talk shit about Tape Deck Heart ever again, I will have no qualms about fighting you.”

Grantaire was quite possibly in love.

This moment realisation, however, was broken by Marius saying faintly, “I liked the Taylor Swift one,” and three separate people hitting him.

~#~

“Hey, Marius,” said Bahorel. The auburn haired student looked up, only to be met by a ferine smile and a small splash. He looked down at the penny now sinking down through his beer. “God save the queen.”

“Oh, god, that’s just cruel,” groaned Combeferre as he watched Marius attempt to down his pint. “Bahorel, you have no morals.”

“And proud.”

“There!” cried Marius, slamming his now empty glass on the table. Everyone eyed him. “I did it!” he slurred triumphantly.

Marius hiccupped once, and then fell backwards off his chair.

“M’fine!” he mumbled, waving a hand in the air. “M’fine.”

The picture was on three different Instagram accounts before you could say ‘hashtag’.

~#~

At eleven, Feuilly excused himself to go to the loo and buy another drink. He offered one to Enjolras, who shook his head, gesturing to his still mostly full glass. He wasn’t sure what it was, but Courf had given it to him.

Enjolras took stock of the situation. Marius was sprawled on the floor, talking to Jehan, who was absentmindedly petting his roommate’s hair. Joly and Bossuet, meanwhile were tangled together in one wicker basket chair. He quickly looked away before he saw anything he didn’t want to.

Combeferre was chatting to a girl, a faint blush visible on his profile even from twenty metres away. Whether that was the alcohol or the girl, Enjolras had no idea. Not really his area.

Bahorel and Courf were sat opposite from him, talking about some kind of video game. Well, Bahorel was talking. Courf was slurring one too many words to really be _talking_.

 Unexpectedly, a drink plopped down in front of him. “Cheer up, Blondie.” He looked up to see Grantaire sinking down into the chair by his, grinning.

“Oh. Thanks.”

“You looked a bit down in the mouth,” explained the artist.

“And alcohol will solve that?” Enjolras asked.

Grantaire shrugged. “You can’t fault me for trying.”

Despite himself, Enjolras found himself laughing. He’d realised tonight that actually, Grantaire was a nice bloke. Entertaining. And he liked Frank Turner, so he couldn’t be all bad.

“What even is this, anyway?”

“Jagerbomb,” grinned the dark haired man.

“I’ve already got a drink.”

The grin only widened. “Say, what do they speak in Finland?”

What? “Finnish?”

It was a full on beam now. “You heard the man. Finish.”

Enjolras clapped a hand to his forehead. “Oh, fuck you,” he said, before tipping back the bloody drink.

Grantaire watched the way his Adam’s apple bobbed in his pale throat, jaw tipped back to expose the white skin. He had to swallow himself.

Enjolras slammed the glass down on the table, wiping his mouth. “Happy?”

“Moderately. Told you it was the key to happiness.” Enjolras rolled his eyes, but there was humour in his face.

“If I’m sick all over your shoes,” he threatened, “you have only yourself to blame.”

“Oh come on, you’re not going to be sick. You’ve barely had anything. Besides,” he said slowly, “the only thing that’s left to do is get another round in at the bar.”

This time when Enjolras laughed, it was the fullthroated sound from earlier. And Grantaire got a flash of why he would want to just be friends with the man; when he loosened up, he was a genuinely nice bloke.

“You know, you’re alright,” he found himself saying. “Once you get the stick out of your ass.”

“I do not – I do not have a stick up my ass!” Enjolras spluttered. “You are seriously shit at giving compliments.”

Grantaire scratched his head. “Yeah, that didn’t quite come out as it should have done.”

Enjolras snorted. “Apparently not.” He paused to think. “You like Frank Turner, so you’re tolerable. And I suppose you did buy me a drink. So you can stay.” He was very definitely on the way to drunk, Grantaire realised.

“Indeed I did.”

“Come on, then,” Enjolras said, voice a little foggy. Grantaire grinned, and the pair of them downed their Jagerbombs simultaneously.

Enjolras coughed. “Jesus, why did I agree to that?”

“Because I’m awesome, that’s why.”

“And modest too, apparently,” the blond said, drily. The effect was slightly ruined by the definite sway creeping into his posture.

“Oh, of course!” replied Grantaire, stretching his legs out.

There was a moment of contented silence. Then Enjolras said, “I’m serious, though. It’s your own fault if I vomit all over you.”

“I’m pretty sure that wouldn’t hold up in a court of law.”

Enjolras pointed at him, finger wavering slightly. “Just you watch me.”

~#~

Somewhere, a clock chimed one. Enjolras looked around, faintly bleary. Marius was still on the floor, apparently asleep.

It also seemed that Joly hadn’t been listening to his opinion on the National’s latest album, as the medicine student was now snoring faintly, in the chair he and Bossuet had been inhabiting. Bossuet wasn’t far away from his lover, though; he and Courf were dancing manically in the corner to the Vaccines blaring out of the bar’s stereo system.

Combeferre was sat on the wicker sofa thing with Feuilly, the pair having some sort of discussion while sharing a cigarette. Bahorel, meanwhile, was at the other end of the terrace, flirting with a very pretty girl with corkscrew curls.

He craned his neck to look for the final two of their group; there, by the railing overlooking the canal, stood Jehan and Grantaire, both smoking. The latter was laughing, Grantaire leaning his hip into the metal and throwing his head back.

After a minute or two, Jehan said something to his friend, then walked – rather unsteadily, it must be said - into the main building, heading for the stairs.

He watched Grantaire exhale a cloud of smoke, then stick the cigarette back between his teeth. The artist rummaged in his pocket for a second, before pulling out a phone. Enjolras watched with curiosity as the dark haired man held it up, trying to work out what the hell he was doing.

Oh. He was taking a photograph of the canal or something.

Then it hit him. Grantaire. Photographs. _Grantaire._

The light on the canal really was something, he reflected. The lights from the bars and pubs overlooking the lock shone stripes of colour onto the obsidian surface, the wind faintly ruffling the water, warping the pattern.

“Hello Grantaire.” He started and nearly dropped his phone.

“Christ, Enjolras, you nearly gave me a heart attack.” Enjolras noted that, despite the copious volumes of alcohol that Grantaire had imbibed, he was neither slurring nor swaying. Well, not swaying much. He had a feeling his own balance was a bit shot, anyway.

“My apologies.”

The pair of them stood in silence, Grantaire looking decidedly more awkward. Then again, he supposed fallen angels didn’t often look awkward.

“What happened to Jehan?” Enjolras asked after a second.

“Went to the bathroom. I think that might be code for going to call Cosette to wail about how Courf will never love him, though. It’s got to that stage of the evening.” He took a final drag of his cigarette, before stubbing it out, but caught Enjolras’ sigh.

“You too, huh?” he asked, gesturing with his bottle of beer that he’d picked up from the floor.

“It’s insufferable,” groaned the blond, leaning his hip into the metal railing. “I’m inches from staging an intervention.” He stopped, frowning. “But ‘Ferre says I shouldn’t do that. No idea why.”

Grantaire laughed at the faint confusion on Enjolras’ face. “I think you should listen to Combeferre. Wise man, Combeferre.”

“Indubitably, although it comes at the price of his being incredibly middle-aged sometimes.”

Grantaire snorted. “Yeah, the sweater vest sort of gave that one away.”

Enjolras laughed. That garment had been a source of eternal pain to the third member of their trio. “Quite. It narrowly escaped burning at Courf’s hands during Fresher’s Week.”

“I think I remember that,” said Grantaire. He fumbled in his pocket, pulling out his packet of cigarettes. He stuck one in his mouth, before offering them to Enjolras, who, to his surprise, took one.

“Didn’t know you smoked,” he commented, trying not to look at how the blond’s lips wrapped around the small cylinder.

“Leftover habit from sixth form,” Enjolras explained, after exhaling. Damn, that should not be attractive. He had a stick of death in his mouth, exhaling clouds of carcinogens, that should not look as hot as it did.

“Oh, right, back in the days of the black hair and ear piercing?”

Enjolras looked confused. “Wait, how - ” Realisation unclouded his features. “Oh. You remembered from the other night.”

“I do occasionally pay attention to my surroundings,” said Grantaire, only the slightest bite to his tone. Enjolras ducked his head a little, tapping ash off the end of his cigarette.

“What were you taking a picture of, just then?”

Surprised, Grantaire gestured vaguely down at the canal. “I just liked the interplay of the different lights on the water. Figured it might be good as a painting reference, if nothing else.”  He shrugged.

This was Enjolras’ in. “That reminds me,” he began.

Grantaire did try to listen. He honestly did. But he’d had a lot to drink, and he heard the words ‘political group’ in there, and that was never a good combo. Also, when you were being talked to by a flipping Botticelli painting, it was kinda hard to keep your brain working.

“- need a photographer.”

“Sorry, what?”

Enjolras fought the urge to roll his eyes. He needed Grantaire’s artistry, and, besides, the bloke was actually quite likeable. And he really didn’t need another lecture on social skills.

“I said,” he repeated, carefully watching the artist’s face, “ABC – our political group, yes? - needs to work on crowd appeal and publicity. We need a photographer. Possibly another designer, too,” he said, thinking on his feet, the memory of that triptych still in the back of his head.

“Wait, you want me?”

Grantaire tried to ignore the way his stomach flipped at his own words. Down, boy.

Enjolras nodded, the alcohol in his system loosening his tongue. “Your photography is amazing. And your art too, from what I’ve heard.”

Grantaire ducked his head.

“And, you know,” he said expansively, “It would be good to have a friend of ours doing it. Feuilly does a lot of design, but he’s overstretched, what with his job.” Enjolras frowned. It really didn’t seem fair that Feuilly would have to work to put himself through university, even with student finance, not when he was so industrious and so talented.

“Poor bloke,” Grantaire mumbled sympathetically. He felt so bad for Feuilly, who’d dragged himself up by his bootstraps since his tenth birthday, worked himself into the ground to get an art scholarship and yet still had to take shitty jobs that cut into his precious free time in order to live properly.

Enjolras nodded again. “So… would you come along to one of our meetings? See if you’re interested?”

Grantaire raised his face slightly. “I’m really not very political.” Oh, but it was tempting, it was so tempting… think of all the material he’d have to paint and draw and fucking _sculpt_ …

Enjolras bit his lip. Goddamn it, the man must know what he was doing. “Please?”

And that one word uttered in an angel’s voice, if angels went to stupidly expensive south London private schools with their own fencing clubs and got drunk on cheap liquor, was enough to break him.

“Alright then.”

The smile on Enjolras’ face was almost blinding enough to stop the clanging chimes of ‘really not a good idea’ in his head.

Almost.

~#~

Grantaire had honestly no idea why he was there. None at all. He had been as surprised as Cosette when he’d told her he was going to watch the debate that evening.

He supposed he _could_ claim that he was going for Jehan, or Bahorel, or Courf, or Eponine. Then again, Jehan, Eponine and Courf were only floor debaters, and if Bahorel caught him being even slightly sentimental, he’d get decked.

No… he had no idea. Truly.

Watching the rest of the audience file in, he idly wondered if it was a sin to lie to yourself so blatantly that you were crossing your fingers in your pockets against your inner monologue.

Jehan plunked into a seat at his side, and Eponine took the other. “What the fuck are you doing here?” asked the latter.

“Polite as ever, ‘Ponine,” replied Grantaire, leaning away to avoid the fist she sent towards his face. “Dunno, just felt like it.”

Eponine eyed him. “Hang on, are you actually sober?” She peered at him. “Jesus Christ, you are. It’s eight pm and you’re sober.”

Grantaire glared at her. “You make me sound much worse than I am.”

“Oh sweetie,” sighed Eponine, and her voice was much sadder than the occasion really merited, “I really don’t.”

Deciding to ignore this – because this really wasn’t something he wanted to think about right now, not after the last week – Grantaire turned his eyes to the long table in front of him. Eight chairs lay empty, ready for the four teams – hey, just because he didn’t take much interest in the debate team normally, that didn’t mean he didn’t understand the rules.

“What are they today?”

Jehan shook his head. “We don’t know yet. They’re outside, doing the last prep. Enjolras desperately wants first opp.”

“Course he bloody does,” muttered Eponine.

Grantaire did his best to not think too hard about this.

“How did your last piece of coursework go, by the way?” asked Jehan, detecting that there was something off with his best friend. “I meant to ask.”

The poet was instantly comforted by the shit-eating grin that spread across his friend’s face. “Bossed it. A fucking plus.”

Jehan threw his skinny arms around Grantaire. “I’m so proud of you, R!”

Smiling into a mess of strawberry blonde hair and daisies, Grantaire hugged him back. Silently, Eponine held out her hand to him. Equally silent, he smacked it five. Eponine didn’t have to resort to squeals and embraces to let him know she was proud.

The hug was broken with the sound of several pairs of feet. Grantaire looked up, pre-emptively clenching his stomach against the swooping that did, predictably, erupt within it upon the entrance of a certain blond.

 _Damn_ , he looked good. White shirt and – oh, for god’s sake – a bloody waistcoat. A _waistcoat_. What kind of bloke could get away with wearing a flipping _waistcoat_ and still look as good as Enjolras did? It wasn’t bloody fair.

Smiling faintly, the blond sank into the first seat that faced Grantaire, Bahorel at his side.

“First opp, lucky bastard always gets what he wants,” muttered Eponine, but with a certain degree of affection.

That must have accounted for the smile on Enjolras’ habitually taciturn face. Grantaire was also glad that he’d gotten first opp too; that way he could watch him.

For sketch practice.

Yep.

That’s what this was about. He just wanted to use Enjolras as a model.

Definitely no other motives. Definitely no boners. Definitely none of them here.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” called a tall woman in a chintzy cardigan and tweed skirt. “If you would come to order.”

“The debate today is over the motion “This house would shut down the NHS.”

Grantaire zoned out for a second, watching Enjolras, trying to remember his posture so he could draw it later. The man was made for art.

As the sketch of him sitting on his bed at home testified. Hey, no one did work on Sundays. Right?

“… so I’d like to welcome the first speaker, Ellie, from Westminster, to open the case for the proposition.”

A slight girl with brown hair got to her feet.

Grantaire didn’t listen to her speech. He was too busy watching Enjolras. The man jittered with energy, pen flying across his page, head jerking upwards every so often to look at the girl. He was practically buzzing in his seat, hair quivering as if with electricity as he frantically wrote down notes. It was captivating. 

Still scrawling, he undid a button on his shirt with one hand. As he did so, Grantaire caught sight of a badge on his waistcoat. He knew that symbol. 

Oh bloody hell. 

The man was an anarchist.

Scribbling across his page, Enjolras looked up quickly at the girl making her closing remarks. Her face had a faint sheen of sweat across it. Nerves.

He could sympathise with that, but another time. Right now, he had to harness the nervy energy bubbling its way through his body and turn it into incisive debate.

He finished his scrawl – oh, how Combeferre would weep – just as the girl made her final comment and sat down. He felt the jitters shake through him, faster and harder this time, and he swallowed.

“Now, I’d like to ask the first speaker for the opposition, Enjolras, representing University College London, to take the floor.” A smattering of applause rushed through the hall as he got to his feet.

“Ladies and gentlemen, honourable Chair,” he began, feeling the nerves turn into pure, pulsing vim, a rush that he would never get sick of. “The proposition has defined the motion as a simple cutting of an arbitrary waste of taxpayers’ money.”

He took a breath, then let a smile spread onto his face. “The opposition would like to begin its rebuttal with a restatement of the motion. The motion proposes the brutal excision of a service vital to this nation, a deplorable removal of a right enshrined within this nation.”

Enjolras paused for a second, watching the stunned expression of the two debaters in front of him, then continued, grinning. This was where he was best, where he was meant to be. “I will be opening the case for the opposition – that is, to propose that the NHS should continue to run – with three main points; but first some rebuttal.” He grinned ever wider.

Grantaire stared. There was nothing else he could do, not when faced with the sheer wonder that was Enjolras.

Hair a riot of golden curls, he gesticulated, both hands cutting arcs and long-fingered slashes, as if to shape the air itself to better underline his points. Standing tall, energy rolled off him. He had unmistakeable presence; it was like the whole room had reshaped itself, funnelling around Enjolras until he was all there was to see, all there was to hear. All sight and sound was Enjolras.

And his _words_. Jesus Christ, his _words_. It was fucking poetry, in that voice of his, to hear him speak – fuck, this man could take on bloody Seneca or something. There was no other word for what he was doing but _declaiming_ , he was declaiming like a born orator.

“Much has been said – and I believe will continue to be said – about the efficiency of the NHS. However –“

Someone shot up on the proposition side of the table. Enjolras raised his eyebrows, as if to say, “really?”

“Point of order!”

“Go on then.” Goddamn, he was an arrogant bastard.

“Wouldn’t it be better to remove such an inefficient service so that people can use more efficient private services?”

Next to him, Jehan winced.

“Simply put, no.” He heard Bahorel snort from beside him. “Your point is completely fallacious; there is not an equal trade in for the NHS with private services. The only way that would be true is if everyone could pay for private healthcare, which simply isn’t true. Replacing the ‘inefficiencies’ with a private system would only create a national inefficiency of several million people who _can’t pay for their healthcare_ ,” he spat. “Returning to my point, the ‘inefficiencies of the NHS are vastly overstated.”

Grantaire stared. It should not be this captivating to watch someone quote NHS statistics in a voice that barely held itself back from a snarl.

But there was fire burning in Enjolras’ larkspur eyes, raging and crackling as he denounced anyone who criticised the opposition. He’d given up taking points of information, a sharp ‘no, thank you’ hardly even breaking his fluent speech.

One boy in particular, from the second prop team, kept springing up. Enjolras’ retorts were becoming snappier and snappier each and every time.

“And, moreover, I would state that it is - ”

“Point of information!”

“No, thank you! It is the duty of any government to act in the interests of the people, and though the proposition may claim - ”

“Point of information!”

“Denied,” said Enjolras smoothly, continuing undaunted. “That the coalition would be acting in the interests of the people to shut down the NHS, I would counter that claim by saying that the government’s only interest here is to cut spending.”

“Point of information!”

Enjolras didn’t even bother replying this time, merely waving his hand. The boy glowered.

“Watch this,” whispered Jehan.

The same boy jumped up, his arse hardly having touched the seat from the last time. “Point of information!” he practically yelled.

Enjolras barely looked at him. “For god’s sake, no! Just sit down, will you?” he demanded, waving his hand dismissively.

A laugh ran around the hall as the bell signalling the beginning of the final protected time rang.

“He’ll lose points for that,” tutted Eponine.

“Who cares? It was brilliant!” replied Jehan, and Grantaire couldn’t help but agree. “Besides, he’s got enough points, you know he has.”

Enjolras permitted himself a smile as he finished his conclusion. God, he enjoyed this.

“Thus, ladies and gentlemen, Madam Chair, and _honoured_ opposition, I rest my case.” Resisting the urge to give a little bow – Combeferre had lectured him for hours the last time he’d done that – he sat down.

Bahorel punched his arm. “Fucking brilliant, E!” he whispered. Enjolras grinned, bumping the proferred fist with his own.

Grantaire barely heard the proposition’s second speaker’s opening, being too busy staring at Enjolras as he sat on the edge of his seat, waiting for the end of protected time and suddenly the bell rang and he was on his feet, shooting upwards in one long, lithe line.

“Point of order!” he exclaimed, and the boy from Westminster looked so taken aback that he immediately acquiesced.

“Bad move,” muttered Eponine, and Grantaire found himself shushing her impatiently, leaning forward to better hear Enjolras (as if his clear voice wouldn’t ring out across the entire hall).

“If you’re going to talk about responsibility to the population, have you not considered that shutting down the NHS would be tantamount to the murder of any seriously ill person without the means to pay for their treatment?”

The Westminster boy flailed for a moment, before stuttering, “I think that’s somewhat of an exaggeration – there are numerous financial aids avail-“

Bahorel shot to his feet. “Point of information!”

The stunned boy – and, to be honest, Grantaire really couldn’t blame him, not if he was faced with both Enjolras and Bahorel in fight mode – nodded weakly.

The grin that spread across Bahorel’s face was sharklike.

~#~

They won the debate, of course. Bahorel demolished what was left of the first prop team, Enjolras left the second prop completely speechless with a devastating point of information, and with ‘Ferre and Eponine’s incisive questions in the floor debate, there really wasn’t any question on that front.

Enjolras tried not to grin when the results were read. Honestly he did.

Grantaire’s hand fisted in his lap as he saw the blond god’s lips stretch into a smile. God fucking damn it.

Jehan shot a glance at him – and got a shock at the look on Grantaire’s pale face.

Jehan had known there was something up with his best friend. He was oddly distracted – jumpy, even.  And, as much as he loved Grantaire, he knew that him being stone cold sober at eight o’clock was a sign of something weird going on.

Seeing Grantaire’s bright blue eyes fixed upon Enjolras, however, had instantly solved the conundrum. He’d seen his best friend in the haze of lust before.

This, however, was something slightly more than that.

Oh, dear me.

~#~

Cosette heard Grantaire letting himself in at about ten, and then a small thud.

Curious – and somewhat worried, because this _was_ Grantaire at ten o’clock at night we were talking about – she got to her feet, placing her sheaf of half-highlighted notes on her bed.

“R?” she asked tentatively, coming into the living room. A small noise came from beneath her. “Everything alright?”

Grantaire, lying spread-eagled upon the sofa, raised his head slightly. “I think I’m in love,” he said dolefully, then let his head fall back against the cushions. “I think I’m in love with a pretty-boy anarchist who wears leggings.”

~#~

Wednesday really hadn’t been a productive day for Grantaire.

After spending a large amount of the night awake, for reasons he really didn’t want to admit to himself, he’d slept in until twelve, eaten some godawful muesli of Cosette’s and then practically sprinted over to UCL. He had then spent most of his lecture on – wait, what _had_ it been about? Pots or something? – doodling in the margins of his notebook something that looked extraordinarily like a Greek god, if Greek gods wore waistcoats.

The day had pretty much been given up for dead by the time he found himself sketching a man with blond hair and a red coat in the background of one of his city sketches.

And now, _now_ , he was outside the Musain for a bloody political meeting because he’d let his dick and paintbrush (in that order) think for him. Fucking hell.

Grantaire knew he was in the wrong place as soon as he saw the leaflets.

 _Change is ours to effect_ , read the first one he could see. Oh, this was a bad idea. He had half a mind to run –

“Grantaire!” said a very familiar public school voice. God, where had he gone to school, fucking Eton or something?

He looked up and – _Christ_ – got a faceful of high cheekbones, blond curls and worn tee shirt. “Hello, Enjolras.”

The leader – for it was quite obvious that the blond was in charge of this bunfight – smiled the same way he had on Saturday. “Glad you could make it.”

Grantaire tried to smile, but the sight of the massive stack of newspapers which had, apparently, been highlighted and annotated to death on the table rather killed his facial muscles. He reminded himself of the fact that Enjolras had asked him to come, that this transfixing beam of radiance had asked him to be there.

He chanced a look up at the young activist. Regardless of Grantaire’s political apathy, the chance to watch Enjolras debating – as he surely would end up doing – really wasn’t something he wanted to pass up on. Not when he’d been invited.

After all, Grantaire was only human. So he managed a small smile.

“It’s nice to have more people here,” continued the blond, shoving his hands into his pockets, the corner of his mouth twitching up slightly.

“What he means,” put in Musichetta, barista-cum-barmaid, carrying in a tray of drinks, “is that it’s nice not to rant to an empty room.”

“Thank you so much for your support, ‘Chetta,” responded Enjolras. He’d clearly gone for an icy tone, but the words had come out as fond.

Seeing an affectionate side to the slab of marble was probably going to kill him. He could deal with him being a tumult of towering passion and conviction, Grantaire thought wildly, but he definitely could not deal with an Enjolras who smiled and blushed.

“Any time, sweetheart,” she beamed, leaning up to kiss his cheek.

He blushed, then fended at her. “Away with you.”

When Enjolras turned back to a transfixed Grantaire, the red had not fully left his cheeks. Grantaire tried not to think about how innocent he suddenly looked. “She pretends she doesn’t believe in any of what we do here,” he explained, “but she’s never more than two people from the front at any of our events.”

“Right,” said Grantaire weakly.

“We probably won’t get started for a while yet,” continued Enjolras, clearly latching onto him as a recruit, “we normally kick off properly at about eight.”

“Cool,” he managed to articulate, shooting a sideways glance at the god beside him. Clad in a – what other colour – red zip up hoodie over a well-loved looking My Chemical Romance tee shirt that clung in just the right places, the man was stunning. He chanced a look down as Enjolras led him over to the cluster of tables where a few of the group were already sat, along with some strangers sat further out, then swiftly looked back up.

Enjolras’ black jeans really should not be legal.

Oh, this was a _really_ bad idea.

“I never really asked, where do you fall politically?”

_Oh god._

“I’m left wing, I guess,” he shrugged, not meeting Enjolras’ larkspur eyes, choosing instead to look down at his scuffed Converses. It wasn’t technically a lie; there was no way he’d ever vote for anyone to the right of Labour.

To be honest, there also wasn’t much chance he’d vote for anyone at all. But that was by-the-by.

“Thank god for that.” The fervency in his tone made Grantaire look up, startled. “I would have probably cried if you’d said you were a Tory.”

Another small smile painted itself across Enjolras’ perfect features, one so genuine that he could understand exactly why the man had such a close group of friends.

He really did not feel worthy of such a smile. Weakly, he waved a fist in the air. “Down with Cameron!”

Enjolras laughed, the same laugh as in the boathouse kitchen and it was so free and unguarded and fucking _happy_ that he wanted to hug the bloke to death because really it wasn’t fair that someone able to smash an argument into pieces with mere sentences could be so flipping adorable.

Oh god, Grantaire really was in too deep.

Combeferre raised his head from a fat book, and smiled. “Hello Grantaire.”

“Alright, Combeferre?” he managed to say.

“Come to see the peanut gallery?”

Behind him, Grantaire heard a tutting noise. “One of these days, ‘Ferre, you’re going to cut yourself on that rapier-sharp wit of yours.”

The philosophy student smiled sweetly. “But that day is not today.”

“Courfeyrac is rubbing off on you, you arrogant little shit.”

Combeferre put his book down, looking amused. “ _I’m_ arrogant? Lord have mercy, I’m being criticised for arrogance by the great Enjolras.”

“Have you guys always been such a married couple?” asked Bossuet, raising his head from Joly’s lap. Joly grinned, hand lightly playing with the hem of the other man’s tee shirt.

“As my grandmother has it,” said Enjolras haughtily. At his side, in his armchair, Combeferre nodded sagaciously, reaching out to take his hand.

“Then what does that make Courf?” asked Grantaire without thinking. The threeway bromance of all threeway bromances wasn’t exactly hard to spot.

“Their adorable child,” said the Irishman seriously, plopping into Combeferre’s lap out of nowhere and adopting a cheesy smile as he draped his arms around his best friend’s neck.

There was a long moment of silence, and then everyone was laughing. Bossuet loudly claimed this as his excuse when he rolled off the sofa he and Joly were inhabiting, but, frankly, that was just Bossuet being Bossuet.

For a moment, Grantaire forgot why he was there, and merely appreciated the strange group of friends he had, laughing ever harder when Combeferre stood up, unceremoniously turfing Courf to the floor.

And then he chanced a look at Enjolras, who was laughing as hard as anyone. And his heart hurt, because no one that perfect could ever be his.

Thankfully, he was spared from any further depressing thoughts on the subject by the appearance of Feuilly. “R!” the tall ginger exclaimed joyfully, hugging him. “Decided to join the cause?”

Grantaire was distinctly aware of Enjolras’ eyes on him. “Something like that, yeah…”

“D’you want a drink?”

The artist raised an eyebrow. “Are you seriously asking me that question?”

Feuilly grinned and made for the stairs back down to the bar, Grantaire at his heels.

This meeting of student activists and anarchists – because that sodding badge was on Enjolras’ hoodie today, for Christ’s sake – seemed distinctly more palatable with a beer in his hand.

“So what are you doing here?” asked Feuilly amiably as they waited to be served. “I didn’t think you were into politics.”

“I’m not,” Grantaire replied instinctively. “But Blondie asked me to come along; he wants a photographer.”

“Fair enough. Sorry, mate, I was just surprised.”

“Not as surprised as I am,” muttered the artist, prompting a laugh from the Scot.

Luckily, upon their return, he was spared any sort of ideological debate, as the unstoppable threeway bromance had their heads together over a stack of notes and Combeferre’s laptop. Huh. Grantaire always managed to forget just how into his politics Courf was. It didn’t seem to fit with his usual happy go lucky persona.

Then again, Grantaire had seen him rant about the state of Northern Ireland  enough times to get a sense of how fiercely political the man was. And he followed Courf’s blog. The posts on fluoro-barricade.tumblr.com were the most unsettling mix of terrible jokes, Disney songs and scarily well-argued political arguments.

Actually, now he came to think about it, quite a few of those must have been Enjolras’.

Oh, god, why had he agreed to this? Why had he let his unquestionable attraction to (and fascination with) a bloke who he had barely spoken to before the last week steamroller over his common sense?

Because you haven’t got any common sense, came a voice that sounded scarily like Eponine’s inside his head.

Jehan appeared at about twenty to eight, dropping down beside Grantaire’s chair to kiss his cheek and say hello, before dancing over to the empty seat on the other side of Joly and Bossuet’s sofa. Bahorel turned up mere minutes afterwards, plunking down next to Feuilly.

Marius was last to arrive, tripping over his own feet and falling into the chair by Grantaire’s at two minutes to eight. Grantaire, mid conversation with Feuilly and Bahorel, caught Enjolras’ rolled eyes at Pontmercy’s antics, and had to bite back a laugh.

However, Grantaire’s good mood could not last. There was the sound of a throat being cleared. Grantaire raised his head, already feeling his stomach sink.

“Right, everyone, if we could make a start?”

The hubbub in the room immediately died down. It was quite impressive, really, how quickly Enjolras could gain silence… and attention, it seemed, for everyone in that room now had their eyes fixed upon the tall man standing in their midst, face taciturn, but eyes blazing as they had in that bloody debate.

“So, I’m sure you’re all aware of the current situation with academies refusing to acknowledge LGBTQA students.”

There was a murmur of approval, along with Bahorel mumbling something colourful that Grantaire was disappointed to have missed.

The corner of Enjolras’ mouth twitched up, just slightly, before the marble façade returned. “I’m sure we all agree that it’s a reprehensible piece of policy by this shambles of a government and if you even try to defend Cameron to me, Pontmercy, I will throw you bodily from the room,” he went on, seemingly in one breath. Grantaire looked to his right.

Wisely, it would seem, Marius shut his mouth.

Grantaire bit back a laugh.

“Anyway, there’s a vote to excise the policy in Parliament taking place in two weeks upon the subject. There’s been a lot of brilliant petitioning, but we have to ensure this vote succeeds.” For a moment, Grantaire almost found himself agreeing. If you forgot the ideology – and the damned _optimism_ behind it – Enjolras was a bloody charismatic speaker. He could hardly take his eyes off him; the man had _presence_ , damn him to hell. “38 Degrees have been asking people to go see their MPs about it. We have to get this stopped at the root; it’s no good dealing with individual schools, we have to cut it off at source, ending it once and for all.”

Combeferre nodded, taking over from Enjolras seamlessly. “Which is why as many of us as possible need to go see our MPs on Friday. I know some of you have classes that morning, but if any of you can make it over to constituency headquarters, that would be perfect.”

Grantaire tried not to baulk visibly. Going to see MPs? Fat lot of good that was going to do.

“Classes,” replied Joly sorrowfully.

“Me too, sorry mate,” said Feuilly.

“Can’t really make it up to Wigan and back,” added Bahorel. “Never bothered changing my constituency,” he explained to Feuilly. “You vote for our flat as a whole.” Feuilly rolled his eyes at his roommate.

Jehan piped up. “I can probably make it down to Tooting and back in the morning after my lecture, if you don’t mind me missing a bit of debate practise?”

Enjolras shook his head. “Minor sin at most. That would be fantastic, Jehan.”

The tiny poet beamed. Next to him, Bossuet straightened up from his position sprawled across Joly. “I’ve not got classes this Friday morning, half the department’s on a field trip. I can easily get down to Woking.”

“Woking, twinned with Beirut,” muttered Bahorel, and Feuilly snorted into his pint.

Marius cleared his throat. “I can head across to Bromley, I’ve not got classes until twelve.”

Enjolras eyed the proselyte for a moment. “Alright. Thanks, Marius.” He turned to speak to the group as a whole. “Courf and I will be heading down to Wimbledon to speak to our MP-”

“God help her,” muttered Combeferre, earning himself a smack across the back of the head.

The blond continued as if nothing had happened. “So this is a really good showing.”

Grantaire tuned out of the next bit, and when he next zoned in, everyone was either annotating notes, or tapping away on laptops or smartphones. He looked around hurriedly, trying to work out what the hell was going on.

He leant over to Marius, who was a friendly sort, even if he was a bit of a prat at times. “Oi, Pontmercy.”

The lanky bloke started, nearly falling out of his chair. Grantaire resisted the urge to laugh. “What’s going on?”

“Oh. Well, there’s a rally next week. Enjolras is going over his speech with Combeferre, and Courf’s writing his own. Feuilly and Bahorel are planning leaflets, and so’s Jehan. And Joly and Combeferre -” of course Combeferre would be doing two things at once, seemingly without effort – “are sending out emails about it. Oh, and Bossuet’s doing the Facebook page and the blog.”

“What are you doing, then?” Grantaire asked kindly.

Marius’ expression went totally blank. It was a look Grantaire had often seen on the linguist’s face. Then he clearly had a moment of revelation, a light going on behind his eyes. “Oh, I’m meant to be planning placards.”

“How’s that going for you?”

Marius looked down at his lap. A page of statistics that Grantaire did not even want to consider reading lay on an open notebook. “Er.”

Grantaire tried not to laugh. Really he did.

Enjolras caught Grantaire’s eye across the circle as he looked up from a conversation with Courfeyrac. He smiled quickly, before dropping his gaze to a sheaf of notes, nodding at something that Courf said.

Grantaire’s stomach flipped. Fuck this, he needed a drink. Another drink. Many, many drinks.

When Enjolras next looked up, he saw Grantaire reentering the room, precariously carrying four pints. He frowned faintly as he handed one to Feuilly, one to Bahorel and plunked another down on the table in front of them, before tipping his head back and practically inhaling a good quarter of the one in his hand.

He’d been awfully quiet, Grantaire, and that didn’t seem to fit with the impression of the man he’d gotten over the last year, and the past week in particular. However, the drinking – because he hadn’t missed the first pint and whatever the fuck Bahorel had given him – did.

Trying not to think about the possible impact this would have on his chances of getting Grantaire onside (because he really did not need to raise his stress levels any higher than they already were), he went back to discussing proposed boycotts of Russian products.

“It’s fucking disgusting,” Grantaire heard Enjolras exclaim. Oh, man, this was so not good.

As the evening went on, Grantaire found himself slipping further and further down in his seat. This was due partially to the multiple pints he’d ingested (as well as the Jagerbomb that Bahorel had handed him, seemingly producing the glass from nowhere) and partially to the fact that he really was not in the right place.

It had been just about okay when the lot of them were discussing stuff from this week’s news. He’d been able to bear listening to them all ranting about George Osborne – ‘cause, hey, he hated the prick too – and had even been able to laugh along with Bahorel and Feuilly.

But then Enjolras had gotten to his feet again and he’d just _known_ that this wasn’t going to end well. The attentive silence that greeted the clear leader of the group felt ominous, even through the haze of alcohol.

“Current government plans would see the NHS gradually cut down to a shadow of its former self. The coalition would have us left without a health service, paring it down to little more than a privatised, neutered excuse for a hospital system.”

Oh, now it all became clear. The passion in his eyes in that debate had been real; he really believed in everything he’d said. Oh, god. Oh god oh god oh god.

Grantaire took another pull of his beer, trying to refocus in on the blond man’s speech, even though he knew it couldn’t be a good idea.

“There have been numerous petitions on the subject, but something more has to be done. A stand has to be taken.” The fervour in the man’s voice _burnt_.

It was sort of inevitable, really. Because, y’know, Grantaire was a pretty self-destructive bloke a lot of the time, which kind of made him prone to doing really stupid things.

“- the government can’t ignore a protest on this level, not when there’s an election so soon.”

The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them. “You do realise that’s absolute bullshit, right?”

Grantaire saw Enjolras turn around as if in slow motion. The expression on his face would almost have been funny if it hadn’t been clear exactly how much Enjolras really didn’t realise.

“Excuse me?”

“I said, you do realise that’s absolute bullshit, right?” Grantaire repeated, knowing that this was probably a bad idea but really unable to stop himself.

Enjolras’ larkspur eyes bored into him. Goddamnit, this man was going to kill him. “Would you like to back up that statement with an actual argument, or are you merely going to disrupt the flow of this meeting with unsupported assertions?”

Jehan sucked a breath in.

“Ooh, miaow, Enjolras.” Apparently his verbal filter had disappeared somewhere around the fourth pint. Then again, apparently all the niceties had flown out of the window for Blondie too.

Vaguely, somewhere behind the alcohol, Grantaire felt sad for that.

“If you have something to say,” said Enjolras, tone dangerous, “say it.”

Grantaire leant back in his seat. He was generally a pretty laid back person, but alcohol made him downright insouciant. “Well, I was mainly wondering if you actually believed that would work.”

Enjolras’ eyes narrowed. “Why would it not?” Lord, this was worlds away from the smiling, friendly man he’d spent much of Saturday with. Multiple personality disorder really wasn’t that far out of the question.

The shorter man gestured with his beer bottle. “Well, sure, it’s a nice idea to think that the government will listen to your protest, and I’m all for fairy stories –“

“Get to the point,” bit out Enjolras, eyes flaming. Oh, his passion. It was something to behold, even when it was in fury and dislike, shot right between Grantaire’s eyes. He thought he might burn up in its blazing heat. And it goaded him on, setting light to the alcohol swirling around his system, fanned by the cynicism that had brought him this far in life.

Grantaire grinned up at him. “But I mean, seriously – do you really think that’s how it works? The government don’t give a shit about what the people think. They spend a bit of time and a lot of money on getting enough votes to secure power, by making promises about the things people want and care about – and then, once they’ve got the keys to the kingdom, they renege on it. They don’t do shit. It’s the same story over and over again, and yet people continue to fall for it, the myth that the government is there ‘for’ them. It’s not. It’s there for the government and its own self-serving intent.”

Enjolras had a retort before Grantaire had even closed his mouth. “Democracy is about the people. That’s how it works. That’s what it is. Democracy is the chance to choose the people to operate the country for you, to act in your best interests. It’s as close as we can get to direct democracy in this country while anarchy remains a dirty word.”

Grantaire rolled his eyes. “Oh, of course you would be an anarchosyndicalist.”

Enjolras ground his teeth audibly. Out of the corner of his eye, Grantaire caught sight of Courf stifling a laugh.

“But anyway, it isn’t. It isn’t direct democracy. You placing your little voting slip in that box in the polling station doesn’t bring you any closer to making decisions about the way this country is run; it merely gives some wanker in Westminster carte blanche to make the decision for you. Democracy isn’t really about the people. It’s about the politicians and the class they represent.”

“The very nature of elections forces the government to listen. Any government that doesn’t doesn’t get reelected.”

“Aha!” Grantaire brandished his bottle again. “Then that would imply that a good deal of governments don’t listen to their subjects – oh don’t look at me like that, Apollo, you damn well know we are subjects to Whitehall and their whims – considering the number of majority changes throughout the history of this country.”

“The people have a definite voice that the government must listen to,” persisted Enjolras, and Grantaire could almost believe him when such passion burned in his eyes and lifted his voice. “Petition and protest are dangerous tools in the hands of a people. Revolt and uprising are simply extensions of that. When the people are discontented, when they rise up and make known their feelings, the government has no choice but to listen.”

“Thanks, Father Gapon, but 1905 want their ideals back.” God knows where on earth he’d remembered that reference from, Grantaire thought wildly, but it was worth it for the look of total consternation that crossed Enjolras’ face for a split second before fury returned.

“Anyway, that’s another thing you’re wrong about,” continued Grantaire. He _really_ was on a roll this evening. “The people uniting? What a load of bullshit.”

Beside him, Feuilly winced. “Oh, really not a good move, R.”

Enjolras drew himself up to his full height. The air around him seemed to crackle with electricity. For a moment, Grantaire considered whether an identification with Zeus would have been more appropriate than his original Appollonic conception of the blond.

“The people do unite. The people have united throughout history and will continue to. When we are aggrieved we rise as one and make our voices heard.”

It really was beautiful, Grantaire thought. Truly, it was. If he wasn’t doomed to cynicism, he’d have found himself drawn in by this Greek god of an anarchosyndicalist, preaching revolution and the voice of the people, calling for change and believing _wholeheartedly_ in the whole damn thing. He’d have almost believed in the bright ideals pouring out of this Apollo.

However, he truly was the embodiment of cynicism, nihilism and probably teenage alcoholism too, and so he couldn’t believe. He simply couldn’t. The things coming out of Enjolras’ perfect mouth were couched in glorious rhetoric and beautiful music but there was no way that their actual content would attract one so mired in gloom and disappointment as Grantaire.

“Oh, come on,” he snorted, raising his eyebrows. “The people don’t unite. The people don’t enough care about politics to ‘rise up’ and take a stand.”

Enjolras was tenacious, though. It was fascinating to behold. Grantaire found himself wondering idly how that would translate in bed. “I think the “I am Bradley Manning” campaign, and the success of Avaaz in recent months, to name but two examples, rather disproves that, _Grantaire_.”

The disdain that laced the pronunciation of his name should probably have given him a heads-up that now would have been a good time to stop, but Grantaire had a) never been particularly smart about when to shut his mouth and b) had far too much to drink if he wanted to remain in  Blondie’s good books.

“Oh _right_ , internet protest! Because me uploading a picture of me holding a sign with some hashtag on it really changes something, doesn’t it?”

“The internet is a vital tool for protest in the modern age,” shot back Enjolras. His readiness for any comment that Grantaire could make really was impressive. He was like a terrier in his dogged maintenance of his beliefs. “Registering a mass upholding of a view is incredibly influential; look at the anti-SOPA movement last year.”

“Yeah, well, moving onto more meaningful causes,” snorted Grantaire. He knew he was being incredibly belligerent, and even quite unkind; he knew this deep, deep down, below the oil slick of alcohol and attraction smearing his thoughts. But he couldn’t seem to help himself. He wanted to argue and argue and argue with Enjolras until the pair of them were blue in the face; he didn’t want to let go of this enthralling man, this Antinous, with his beauty and his charisma and his fucking ridiculous idealism. “Do you seriously believe that anything of relevance can be changed by a few people on the internet?”

Enjolras could not believe this. He’d been getting along pretty well with the drunk – because, yes, that was what Grantaire was, anyone could see it – but now it turned out that the art student had the worst case of cynicism he could possibly imagine.

Combeferre watched a muscle in his best friend’s jaw twitch, then met Courfeyrac’s eyes where he sat on other side of their glorious leader. Courf’s expression was pained.

“Actually, yes,” Enjolras bit out. “The evidence bears my point out, Grantaire.” In his pocket, his fingers twitched reflexively.

“Oh, _right_ ,” replied the dark haired man. “So a ton of people clicking ‘like’ on facebook, or signing some bullshit petition changes anything, does it?”

Feuilly opened his mouth, and then shut it. While Grantaire did possibly have something of a point, buried under all the cynicism, _and_ while it really wasn’t a good idea to criticise petitioning to the man who’d set up this entire group in the first place, the Scot knew it was probably smarter to stay out of this one.

Besides, it was kind of interesting to see how Enjolras was going to rebut this one.

“Any expression of opinion is incredibly powerful when it comes en masse, especially in the modern mainstream media,” replied the blond, cut glass accent smacking straight through Grantaire with the force of a ballistics attack. “Look at that petition against EDF’s disgusting treatment of those protestors last year. One ‘bullshit petition’” – and, Christ, the scorn in that one hit Grantaire in the solar plexus, because the bloke was fucking beautiful when he was pissed off and he really didn’t like Grantaire – “and those corporate bastards were forced to drop everything. Mass protest can be extraordinarily successful.”

Grantaire stared at the man before him for a moment. Eyes blazing, cheeks faintly flushed, golden hair tumbling everywhere, he looked like something out of a Romantic painting, if Delacroix had been painting in 2013’s east London, instead of France nearly two centuries before.

He was a modern day Liberté, right there in the flesh, in his tight jeans and scarlet hoodie, a snarl barely bitten back from his perfect lips.

And yet Grantaire could not help but ridicule the man’s beliefs. For they were simply absurd.

“Occupy certainly achieved some good results, didn’t it?” he asked casually.

At his side, one of Enjolras’ fists clenched.

Joly, seeing this, shot an alarmed look at Combeferre, who simply shook his head. The philosopher really was not in the mood for his best friend to punch someone, but he’d seen Enjolras just before he turned to violence, and they weren’t quite at that point yet.

Besides, debates like these were good for Enjolras. And Grantaire was an effective speaker; his arguments, though contrary to Combeferre’s own beliefs, were even more impressive when you realised just how much he’d had to drink.

Enjolras worked hard to get a hold on himself. His temper, legendary as it was, would not help him in this case. He didn’t know _why_ Grantaire was managing to get so entirely under his skin, making him snap back retorts with barely a thought, setting his blood to boil, but it was happening nonetheless.

“It’s opinions like that which we’re working to erode,” he spat, glaring at the drunk – because there was no denying it, Grantaire was drunk – who merely smirked back, barely a sway to his posture.

“How beautifully idealistic of you. However,” he took a pause to knock back more of whatever was in that bottle, and Enjolras felt his lip curling, “it ain’t so easy to change people’s opinions.”

“Education is the way forward. Openmindedness is a weapon.”

“And one wielded _admirably_ by you, Apollo.”

Enjolras was about to continue with his speech, but suddenly Grantaire’s words filtered into his enraged brain. “What did you call me?”

Grantaire seemed to ignore him. “But my point is, Apollo, don’t count on the people or the government to listen to you. ‘Cause no one really gives a damn.”

Enjolras stared at the man opposite from him. How could someone have such an abject _lack_ of belief in the very fundamentals of politics?

There was a long silence. Joly swallowed audibly, and Courf would have laughed normally, if it weren’t for the stare-off going on in their midst. Or, you know, the fact that Enjolras had been rendered speechless.

Then Enjolras spoke. “People who hold that view - ” - _people like you_ , came the unsaid but clearly heard codicil – “are the first obstacle to change. Those who do not believe cannot see. The apathetic will make their own noose.”

Grantaire gazed up at the man declaiming about a general idea, while really speaking of the individual, of Grantaire, of Grantaire’s inability to believe, and for a moment he could almost believe it. He could almost believe the words tumbling out of this Apollo’s mouth, this newborn Luis Companys and all his passion. All his glorious, magnificent passion, which burned and glowed like a sun in the dark of Grantaire.

Enjolras was damning him, in that voice of power and strength, rhetoric pouring as if off his skin, and it was glorious. He was glorious to behold.

“If you have no hope of betterment, that will come true,” he finished, somehow seeming twelve foot tall, lit in the unearthly halogen glow.

And that was the first thing he’d said all evening that Grantaire had agreed with.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Most of the political things I mention are real, including all the petitions, quite a few of which I signed. 
> 
> The thing about the academies was a thing, but I have no idea if it will still be current by November this year (when this fic is set); I'm also pretty sure there's not actually been a vote on it in Parliament.
> 
> The NHS law I made up. But, to be honest, with this government, it's not so unlikely. Scary. 
> 
> I'll try to be more prompt, next time. This one got out of hand.

**Author's Note:**

> some clarification: the boys are rowing from near Putney Bridge in South London (near where I rowed wooooo)
> 
> sculling is when you row with two blades (oars to you); sweep is when you have one
> 
> essentially you row backwards so combeferre is at the front of the boat but he's going backwards so actually it's Enj that leads them
> 
> a cox is a little bloke/girl who sits in a coxed boat and captains and steers them; the boys row in a coxless quad, which is why Courf does all the shouting and 'Ferre does the steering
> 
> the Head is the name of a boat race, like The Head of the River, Kingston Head or whatever 
> 
> the riggers are the metal bits that stick out from the boat's hull; one slides one's blades into 'gates' built into the riggers 
> 
> rowing lesson over, the quote that R reads from Cosette's book is actually a quote from a massive textbook I'm expected to have read by freshers' week in about nine weeks' time 
> 
> hope you liked it :)


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